70 pounds still lose weight, this may be a disease
"Once again dominated by food"-there are a group of people in the world who cannot "get along" with food.
They may be bloggers who introduce fine diets on the Internet, or they may be "sports supermen" in the gym; they may be skinny or overweight, or they may have a body that many people admire.
Today, when depression is getting more and more attention, their depression stems from the fear of food.
This is a struggling story about people with eating disorders.
One minute
1, 2, 3...... 36, 37.
Is there only 37 heartbeats?
Xiaocheng felt that one minute was short.
At that time, she was only more than 60 kilograms-a weight that scared her but was inexplicably excited.
She went to school in another place and curled up in the dormitory late at night. Even with a mattress, her bones were painful.
Her heart was beating too slowly, and she was afraid that she would die like this, and no one would know.
She is still hungry and has a stomachache.
In the middle of the night, she would make up her mind to eat well the next day, but on the second day, it seemed that the struggle last night was a dream, and she could continue to go on a diet.
Xiaocheng has been keen to lose weight since graduating from high school. She gradually realized that during the repeated process of dieting and exercise, her relationship with food became abnormal-restricting food types too much, minding food calories, and always wanting to use higher exercise volume Offset it.
Whenever she sweats profusely to complete an ultra-high-intensity exercise goal or feels extremely hungry at night, she feels that this is the best reward; she feels scorching hunger when she sees others eating and drinking and she "does not get in." Sense, there is also a sense of nameless pleasure.
"That was a past that I feel unreasonable and unbearable to look back." Xiaocheng said, at that time she was already in the stage of anorexia nervosa in eating disorders.
Adolescents who excessively diet in order to lose weight, have disordered eating habits, and are extremely sensitive to weight and appearance, "are simply natural targets for (eating disorders)."
But in fact, loss of appetite control and exercise addiction are just symptoms of this mental illness.
She thought it was just "the price of beauty."
She squeezed her own meal time, a plate of rinsed vegetables, she could eat in less than a minute.
And what she likes most every day is to spend an hour in the convenience store "after a meal" where there is a dazzling array of food and drinks.
She would pick up the biscuits and cakes from the container, carefully check the heat meter on the packaging, and after some quick calculations in her head, she would put them back.
A convenience store is enough for her to go around for half an hour, and then she leaves with nothing but satisfaction.
There may be three or four trips to such a convenience store every day.
This originally lively and plump girl gradually showed "spare ribs" on her chest, because the loose skin and flesh could no longer cover the shape of the joints.
Her thighs are only thick.
Many of Xiaocheng's memories are vague.
In fact, anorexia nervosa has the highest fatality rate among neurological diseases, mostly due to cardiac abnormalities caused by malnutrition or suicide.
Under the action of the disease, her physical and mental state deteriorated rapidly due to lack of energy.
The decline of her memory even made her not acquainted with friends.
That feeling is like entering old age early.
She originally thought that she was a little fat, so she started to lose weight. The goal was reduced from 120 catties to 90 catties. After the goal was reached, she felt that 85 catties was not bad. Later, because the weight figures after meals were also very good, she felt that "a person is 70 catties. Being able to live"...At that time, I was not thinking about the "beauty" in the body, but simply obsessed with numbers.
She only feels "safe" if she hides behind the extremely low numbers and touches the protruding bones.
When celebrating her 20th birthday, she was 70 jin, with a portion of boiled vegetables and a plate of fruit for her birthday in front of her.
What she remembered was the wry smile of her parents across the table.
A one-minute birthday song, parents wishing themselves a happy birthday, Xiao Cheng counted in his heart-51, a fair heart rate.
After eating the food in front of her, her stomach was still empty, but she was inexplicably satisfied in her heart.
Food addict
"I think I will die if I don't eat well," Xiaohui said helplessly.
She belongs to bulimia nervosa and has been in the "bulimia cycle" for a long time.
She started to lose weight in junior high school, and at first she was only able to eat laxative and cathartic foods.
"(The irritating food) is attacking the stomach wall. I'm cramping, but my heartbeat is quickening again and I feel like I'm still alive."
Xiaohui carefully guarded the so-called weight "guideline" that "good women are not more than a hundred", but when she arrived at university, she could no longer suppress her appetite, and she completely slid into the abyss of "clearing behavior" after gluttony—inducing vomiting.
She began to overeating regardless of the quantity and frequency, and then secretly vomited.
Every time she sees her "results" after inducing vomiting and stays weak against the wall, she feels "disgusting" herself.
However, such binge eating, diarrhea and vomiting are as addictive as drug abuse, and she feels like a "food addict".
The "decayed" body, delayed studies and work, and the estrangement between relatives and friends are all "gifts" for eating disorders.
Her boyfriend couldn't understand why she collapsed frequently, and she couldn't get along with "a bite".
Xiaohui remembers that after an unplanned meal, she quarreled frantically with her boyfriend, and even started to fight with her boyfriend.
The boyfriend smashed the mirror angrily and went to stitch.
For a few days, she frantically pressed cakes and biscuits into her stomach, and induced vomiting with her hands, day and night.
Her teeth were loose, her hands were scars from vomiting, the old wounds were not healed, and new ones were added.
"They (vomiters reported in the news) will be criticized for saying,'Grandpa Yuan Longping fed you too much', but almost no one cares if they are sick." After a moment of silence, she added, "They "Refers to "we".
Marketing "Business Opportunity"
From the L size, the M size to the S size and the XS size, Xiong Xiong bit by bit stuffed himself into smaller clothes.
Now, seeing his XS size leggings and suspender skirt, Xiong Xiong feels that this is the result of "cutting your feet and fitting your feet".
She remembered that there was a "girl height and weight comparison table" that was very popular on the Internet, and the corresponding weight of 150 cm in height was even only 33 kg.
"66 Jin, that's my weight in elementary school."
Last year, just like the trend, several social celebrities that Xiong Xiong followed started to lose weight, which made her panic—"Many people around me are losing weight, many Internet celebrities are losing weight, and many thin people are losing weight. If I don’t Isn’t it a lot fatter than others?"
Actresses who ate and bring food scales in variety shows were carefully promoted by the program team. The talent show asked hundreds of girls to measure waist circumference and weight... Xiong Xiong believes that the media's pursuit and promotion of "slim beauty" is simply pervasive.
In this way, Xiong Xiong, who was originally just an ordinary figure, believed that he was the representative of "Soil Fei Yuan".
"I want to have that kind of figure in my dreams." Xiong Xiong looked around for the secret recipe for weight loss and tried a variety of amazing recipes.
"Carbon water," "fat," "Copenhagen weight loss," "ketogenic diet," "liquid fasting"...These are all popular weight loss diet methods on a certain social software, and deep users of the software raged and used them during anorexia. Tried it all over.
The fear of "everyone is thin, you are fat" has long crushed her rationality.
The extreme diet method uses ultra-low daily intake or extremely biased nutritional structure to reduce Xiong Xiong’s weight from more than 100 catties to more than 70 catties, but she failed to enjoy the food after losing weight, as advertised. You can "get the whole world".
Prolonged dieting has made raging forget how to eat like a normal person, and the food in front of him is all "evil" calories.
She fell in love with eating various meal replacement products. "Konjac noodles" and "meal replacement milkshakes" are low-calorie satiety and nutritionally balanced "fairy foods" in merchants.
According to the recommendation of a meal replacement brand, a can of meal replacement milkshake can replace a regular meal. “If you want to quickly build a body line in a short time, you can replace all three meals. Generally, a two-week meal replacement plan is recommended.”
But in fact, the daily intake of the merchant’s "meal replacement plan" is only about 800 kcal, while the daily intake of an average adult woman should be more than twice that.
Meal replacement products are not cheap, and they spend money like water, but the boxes of expensive "nutritious food" she received did not bring health, but made her more and more trapped in eating disorders.
The lack of the body is reflected in the depression of the will and the irritability of the spirit.
She also doesn't like the skeleton of herself in the mirror.
"This is a consumer game for the media and businesses, but I take it seriously." She said.
For such patients, the nightmare also stems from the deep reliance on the "health management" software on the mobile phone.
Most of this type of software is known as "helping to develop a healthy lifestyle."
Input the data of height, weight, age, target weight and body management direction, the software will get a calorie number, and ask the user to pay attention to the food calories in the next day, so as to achieve the purpose of weight control in one stage .
In the "calorie calculator", you can search and record the calories of various foods.
It will remind you "you can still eat ××kcal", "intake ××kcal", "exercise ××kcal", or after you "eat more ××kcal", how can you consume it? .
Xiong Xiong calculated that his "you can eat" daily calories are about 1200 calories, which is also a value obtained by many users who need to lose weight.
However, this recommended calorie is only a standard of basal metabolism for most adult women, that is, "a calorie that is only enough for you to survive."
Basic metabolism is the minimum daily energy requirement for the human body to maintain all organs of life. As long as a person has physiological activities-walking, talking, eating, the daily consumption will be greater than this value.
Xiongxiong realized that she couldn't accurately calculate the calories of a serving of vegetables in the canteen. She simply reduced her intake very drastically, "Just eat a little and pretend to eat it, so that it will definitely not be excessive."
At the same time, the app is still selling meal replacements, most of which are recommended "green light foods", and those home-cooked dishes with more oil and water, even high-calorie fruits such as bananas and durians, are "red light" or "Yellow Light".
Even if the input weight data is only 70 kilograms, as long as the goal is still set to reduce fat or shape, the software will give a recommended value of calorie intake of about 1200-1500 calories or even lower.
Many users upload their daily dietary graphics and body management history on the same social software, and they seem to be "full of vitality".
But Xiong Xiong noticed that some users' weight figures have become 70 kilograms, but they are still losing fat.
There are also user comments "I also want to follow you, try to restrain appetite", "Envy, jealousy and hatred"...
He hated this software and took her step by step into the world of anorexia and gluttony.
In its published content, you can see many videos about body management and dietary advice.
However, in many videos, Xiong Xiong has also noticed that the nutritionist has turned his words to the branded foods he promotes.
She feels that this is to continue selling "healthy food" after being anxious about selling food.
She sometimes likes to watch eating and broadcasting videos to divert her appetite, and found that this brand that focuses on health management, on the one hand advocates a healthy and reasonable diet, on the other hand, she chooses the "big stomach king" eating and broadcasting, which has a controversial diet and physical and mental state, for product promotion.
"I don't want to calculate either. In order to survive, I uninstalled (software) many times, but the numbers seem to have been printed in my head. I still download it back and continue to record it to be at ease." She said.
Very low consultation rate
Xiao Zhu is a dancer who suffers from eating disorders.
In the eyes of outsiders, her mood fluctuates easily and her behavior is odd.
She chose to live alone on vacation and lose weight at ease.
Xiao Zhu, who uses health software to "manage his figure", buys vegetables and cooks every day. According to the ratio set by the software, three meals a day are as meticulous as an experiment, but gluttony is not absent.
She often ate while crying, and cried bitterly on the bed with her stiff belly after overeating.
Occasionally, her diet exceeded her planned intake. The "swimming for more than two hundred minutes" and "dancing for a few hours" listed by the health software can destroy her psychological defenses and start another cycle of gluttony in her self-blame .
She was so skinny that her mother asked her if she was taking drugs.
She feels that there is no real empathy, even if she gains sympathy, she can't exchange understanding.
Although eating disorders have the highest fatality rate among mental disorders, the rate of medical visits is extremely low and has only been on the rise in recent years.
There are very few hospitals specializing in eating disorders in China, and those who can be hospitalized for several months are a minority in the entire eating disorder group.
Patients with eating disorders like Xiao Zhu may go to the gynecology department. After taking a few rounds of hormonal drugs after blood tests and B-ultrasound, menstruation cannot be promoted. In the endocrinology department, the doctor provides trace element supplements, but the anemia cannot be cured; The 24-hour heart monitoring in the cardiology department may only get the result of "sinus bradycardia"; if you go to the psychiatric department and be diagnosed with depression, psychotropic drugs may even further curb your appetite...
Recently, Xiao Zhu accidentally followed some bloggers who had experienced eating disorders and joined their exchange group.
After "finding the organization", she felt "finally someone can understand me".
She asked questions in the group and received answers. At the same time, she found that some of the patients were still refusing to eat, some were struggling between binge eating and vomiting, and some were in hospital, but most of them were still relying on themselves or their family members. Struggle with this terrible mental illness.
In the group, Xiao Zhu got to know Xiao Cheng, who was already receiving treatment.
She finally knew that she was not a monster, and she didn't need to be ashamed of it. She was just sick.
She felt that she finally had a glimmer of hope for getting better.
Xiaocheng remembered that on a cold night when anorexia was attacking, he wrapped a single shirt and shrank on the roof of the dormitory, because a little incident completely collapsed.
"I called my mother thousands of kilometers away before I wanted to do something stupid." She cried hysterically to her always strict mother, and even planned that if her mother stopped drinking her, she would be able to end her life in a hundred, and jump from the rooftops. Jump off.
"But she is so gentle. The next day, she left her job as if instinctively, and rushed to me like a superman."
For many patients who have never confessed to their families, what they fear most is being misunderstood and given up by the people they trust and love the most.
Xiaocheng feels that for her family, "understanding" is something that has nothing to do with words but a heart. And because of this, she understands why family therapy and cognitive therapy play an irreplaceable role in the systemic treatment of eating disorders.
After this disaster, she felt rescued by her "superman" parents.
She got along with her parents for a long time and talked a lot. The family went on a trip and "hug together to keep warm."
With the company of her family, she revisited many places she had visited in her childhood.
Now, she firmly believes that she will get better, even if "the road is hindered and long."
According to investigations, eating disorders can be cured.
Among anorexia, the cure rate of anorexia in adolescents is 50%-70%, and the cure rate of anorexia in adults is also close to 50%; the cure rate of bulimia is even higher, reaching 70%.
Under the doctor's guidance, she didn't want to "disarm" anymore.
"I can fight it for three hundred rounds!"
Xiaocheng thinks she is lucky-when she stood skinny in front of her mother, ready to be reprimanded, her mother just hugged her lovingly.
She curled up in her mother's arms and fell asleep.
"From that moment on, I felt that I had to get better."
(In order to protect privacy, the patients interviewed in the text are pseudonyms)
Chen Zhiqi Source: China Youth Daily
Version 06 on November 10, 2021