The blog authoress, Harriet Brown, writes about Harvard University removing dietary ingredient and calorie/fat gram count signs from their dining halls in response to a protest from folks worried about those students (and faculty members, I suppose) with eating disorders.

Do check it out.  It’s a food fight that was won by the right people!

Post from: Blisstree

Winning the Food Fight at Harvard University

This leads me to wonder… do college gals tend to help or hinder other college gals, especially those struggling with body image problems or full-fledged eating disorders?  Do they just avoid asking roommates why they vomit after every meal?  Do they ignore obvious signs and symptoms of anorexia?  Do they just chalk it up to the “freshman fifteen” when a binge-eating coed starts putting on significant amounts of weight in a short time period?

I know most campuses are “officially” on the lookout for eating disorders now more than ever, but is education really helping?  Truly, I still see the same problems whenever I visit a university.  Do you?  If so, what can we do to help stem the tide of disordered eating and thinking?

Post from: Blisstree

Do college gals help or hinder one another?

I highly respect the thoughtful comments that it has generated thus far and invite you to contribute to the discussion. 

For example: 

1. Are you afraid enough of dying to stop your disordered eating ways? 
2. Does death scare you? 
3. Do you actually wish for death so you can escape from ana or mia?  (If so, I would recommend contacting the national suicide hotline — 1-800-SUICIDE.  Please.  We need you.)

Post from: Blisstree

Does the threat of dying young motivate you to get better?

Because he lives half a continent away, I couldn’t direct him to any local resources.  Therefore, I asked for his permission to reprint part of his note here in the hopes that someone else (perhaps you?) might have some good advice.

This is an honest, candid look at how difficult it is for men with issues surrounding body image and food.  Please respond with kindness and understanding.  My thanks to him for getting in touch.

“…i just came across a couple of your postings on “breaking the mirror”, and i’m what the media calls ‘manorexic’. Until very recently i was not aware that any other guys actually struggled with this issue. I… live in New Zealand… i’ve been counting calories since i was 8. But the last two years have seen me really tighten my belt. I’m lucky enough to be experiencing two traditionally female disorders, in that not only am i terrified of eating or sick with guilt from a meal, i’m going through severe post-natal depression… The two seem to feed off each other   If there’s any information you can recommend i get to, or you have any questions you think i can answer, please drop me a line.”

Post from: Blisstree

Can you give this eating disordered visitor some advice?

Do you think songs could be good therapy for an anorexic or bulimic?  Could they help him or her out of a funk?

OR

Do you think that songs can trigger ana and mia, especially when they are tunes from the era in which the person had a raging eating disorder?

Discuss…

Post from: Blisstree

Songs, songs, songs — therapy?

In a quest for real, honest answers, I’d like to start a new feature here at Breaking the Mirror called “Ask Ana”. 

The premise is simple — if you have a burning question about eating disorders, body image, et cetera, please leave it in the comments section of this page -OR- privately email it to me at lemonpepr(at)aol(dot)com. 

As I receive questions, I’ll post them here for us all to discuss based on our experiences.  And if we need to get more professional help, I’ll seek out answers from professional psychologists, eating disorder specialists, doctors, dentists, whatever.

So what do you say?  What should we “Ask Ana” first?

Post from: Blisstree

Ask Ana

As a Sagittarius and a fire sign, I’m very passionate about what I do, and I’m a bit of a perfectionist.

So could my eating disorder and disordered eating tendencies have been nudged along because I was born at a certain time of the year?

Tell me — what is your sign?  I wonder if we’ll find any significant correlations between where our birth dates fall according to the zodiac and what kind of eating disorder we’ve had?

Photo: Newscom

Post from: Blisstree

Could your chances of having an eating disorder increase depending upon your sign?