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Getting Ready to Read

Getting Ready to Read

Before you read, do at least one of the following activities:

Recognize that, statistically, it’s a near certainty that some of your classmates have, do, or will struggle with an eating disorder—up to ten percent of Americans will in their lifetime, according to 2007 from the National Institute of Mental Health statistics. If your class reads and discusses this article, please keep in mind that you’re probably talking about people in the room. (This is good principle to follow when discussing any sensitive subject, such as sexual violence, or identity category, such as sexual orientation.)
Do a Google search for “anorexia recovery blog” and read some of the blogs that come up.

As you read, consider the following questions:

How well are you able to separate your reactions to the problems of eating disorders themselves, and the emotions those reactions engender, from your reactions to Cochran’s research and findings?
How does Cochran establish authority as a researcher and commentator on this issue?

“We are not anorexics. We are individuals who struggle with anorexia. We cannot stop his words from being whispered in our ears, but we can choose what we do about it.” Jane, a British eighteen-year-old who has battled anorexia for four years, eloquently wrote this in her blog about the “voice” of her eating disorder. She captures the point well: people who suffer from an eating disorder can learn to recognize it as a mental illness both external to their true identity and internal as an infiltration of their minds distorting and consuming that identity. To recover, people with anorexia must not only nourish their starving bodies but also learn to separate the eating disorder “voice” in their mind—known in the blogosphere as “ED,” “Ed,” or “Edward”—from their healthy voice. Such people must ceaselessly choose which voice to listen to. Thus, recovery is a mental process as well as a physical one, a process that, for many, increasingly involves blogging. A study of recovery blogs, though, demonstrates that even in blogs the same two voices still battle, presenting risks that might not be immediately apparent to those seeking support through blogging.

Apart from a variety of counseling methods for treatment of eating disorders, some people in recovery use blogs to chronicle their daily food intake and disorder-influenced thoughts for a number of reasons. The most obvious may be the cost of treatment, as inpatient treatment for eating disorders can cost $30,000 or more a month. While the duration of the illness when left untreated can be more than fifteen years, one study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Eating Disorders showed that only 50 percent of patients reported being “cured” by the end of their treatment. With 7 million women and 1 million men affected in the U.S. alone, many people choose to seek recovery mostly on their own rather than face such expenses (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa). Besides being a cheaper form of therapy, recovery blogging has clear benefits as social writing: it allows people to come to terms with their problems, reflect, and vent emotions, as well as to receive sincere feedback and support from others who truly understand the blogger’s suffering and experiences. The combination of reflection, catharsis, and supportive feedback experienced by bloggers is perhaps not achievable in any other way.

Despite its positive aspects, blogging may not be as safe an outlet for recovering from anorexia as it appears... .

Still, despite its positive aspects, blogging may not be as safe an outlet for recovering from anorexia as it appears, due to the obsessive nature of anorexics. An anorexic’s intense fear of weight gain pushes him or her to restrict caloric intake, so that this restriction, and maintaining low body mass indexes, creates a feeling of a “safe haven,” a comfort zone. In some ways, a blog focused on anorexic aspects of eating helps maintain this safe haven by establishing a medium through which one publishes one’s routine eating times, monitors acceptable meals, compares the amount eaten to fellow recovery bloggers, and risks obsession with another aspect of eating: the journaling of what one allows oneself to eat. In an effort to explore such risks of blogging for recovery, this article studies some negative aspects of an otherwise healthy and useful form of therapy for people struggling with anorexia.