Spiderwebs


Anorexia is an entricately designed weave of fragile lies, which each one by itself would break easily, but together have the strength of iron. When you first run into it you barely notice. You didn't see it there in your path, but later will recall the many times in your life when you sat back and admired the shimmering and glistening trap, wet from the lies and illuminated by your quest for thinness. When you first run into it, it is a soft encounter, which allows you to believe that an escape, if ever necessary, would be easy. But, when you do finally choose to move on, you are startled by the complexity of your problem. Each of the millions of invisable strands finds a place and bonds on you, sticking and securing it's place. In a desperate effort, you turn around and around, working to break free, but only manage to tangle yourself worse. And, if in some super-human moment, you do manage to free yourself, you will find millions and millions of pieces of the delicate web still clinging and impossible to remove.


.......This is an entry from one of my many journals. I will never quit marveling at what a complex problem an eating disorder is, and this is just another entry regarding that.





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General statistics

Here are some general statistics about all types of eating disorder.

About 1% of female adolescents have anorexia.

The mortality rate for anorexia is higher than any other psychological disorder.

Approximately 4% of college-aged women are bulimic

90% of anorexia and bulimia sufferers are female.

Studies suggest that 60% of American adults are overweight.

20% of overweight Americans are clinically obese.

A study in Drugs and Therapy Perspectives reports that 1% of women in the US have binge-eating disorder.

Approximately 70 million people worldwide have an eating disorder.


According to a 10-year study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, 86% of sufferers report the onset of their illness by the age of 20. Of these, 10% report the illness at the age of 10 or younger, 33% between the ages of 11-15, and 43% between the ages of 16-20.

The same study revealed that 77% of sufferers said the duration of their illness lasted from 1-15 years. Of these, 30% reported the duration as being from 1-5 years, 31% from 6-10 years, and 16% from 11-15 years.

Silke, the analogy of anorexia and a spiderweb is brilliant! All the lies and how anorexia grabs a thght hold of you..amazingly well written!

Thanks so much for sharing this, I am glad that you did!

Love,
Dara (who is stuck in the spiderweb too)