I chose to respond to a video I watched on YouTube
entitled “Dana, The 8 Year Old Anorexic”. It was a documentary done about one
little girl’s struggle with Anorexia Nervosa and her 12-week treatment at
Rhodes Farm Clinic in London.
What shocked me initially was that she was only 8 years
old. My first thought was why would an 8 year-old want to be skinny? Dana did
not even know that she was anorexic until her mom showed her the signs and
symptoms of the disorder on the internet. Even though Dana realized that she
had every sign and symptom listed, she still continued to starve herself, not
knowing why. Her parents had taken her to a local hospital, but Dana refused to
eat for the entire two weeks she was there. The hospital tried feeding her
intravenously, but Dana wrapped the IV around her hand and squeezed the tube
off holding her arm up for six hours just to keep the drip from entering her
veins. Her organs started to shut down. They told her that she wasn’t getting
enough calories and that she was going to die if she didn’t eat. She said in
the interview that she didn’t care; she wanted them to just “let her die”. The hospital released her unable to help Dana
or her parents.
Once home, Dana limited her caloric intake to 175
calories per day. Then she started exercising daily by skipping rope for an
hour after every meal. When her mom took the jump rope away, Dana continued to
exercise by running up and down the stairs until one day, she told her mom that
she was too tired to continue running but she just couldn’t make herself stop. Desperate,
Dana’s parents admitted her to an eating disorder clinic. Once they arrived,
Dana begged her parents to take her home. She promised them she would eat.
It is true that if you don’t suffer from a mental illness,
you most likely know someone who does. Knowing many who do, I can tell you that
Dana’s behavior is typical of someone suffering from anorexia. She promised she
would eat, but because of her intense fear of gaining weight, she found a way to
keep from doing that by restricting her calories, then exercising to excess to
burn those calories and many more.
When Dana entered treatment, she had lost 25% of her
normal weight for her age, (10% more than the average 15% weight loss of those
who are treated for anorexia). When interviewed, she told her therapist that she
started by cutting out sweets, then all junk food, finally cutting out food altogether.
The statistics alone
are shocking: 80% of 11-14 year-olds worry about their body image; from 2000 to
2010, the number of children under the age of 10 hospitalized for anorexia had
increased by 50%; the average age of a child who suffers from anorexia is
falling; there are more 8, 9, and 10 year-olds being admitted into eating
disorder clinics now; 3/4 of 7 year-olds want to be thinner; children as young
as 5 are worrying about body fat, and 1/3 of children with anorexia will
struggle with it for the rest of their lives. How sad.
It’s important to remember that Anorexia Nervosa is not
about the food. People think those who suffer from it are doing it to get
attention or to get thin. Anorexics don’t want to hurt themselves or their
families. Those who suffer like Dana just can’t stop. It is extremely difficult
on the family to watch their loved one slowly kill themselves and feel totally
helpless. The family feels like they have to always keep on alert for a possible relapse.
People need to understand that when you starve the body,
you starve the brain. Anorexics, in the throw of their disorder, are going to be
insistent on their dysfunctional eating to the nth degree because of their distorted body image. Weight control
becomes an obsession and a way to gain control of their lives, because there
are underlying problems causing them to feel out-of-control.
