...like a little baby stoat!
Thanks to all of you wonderful readers out there, I am currently #7 in the People's HealthBlogger Award 2009. This is just a little reminder to keep those votes coming! Every last one is appreciated. Click on the "vote now" link below to work your magic. You do have to join Wellsphere, but they don't spam and it's super-easy.
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and basically involves any news article, research, or person who makes me want to beat my head against a desk until I look like the cat above.
The Pretty Kitty award goes to those who give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, usually those people who not only have a brain, but actually use it. The Pretty Kitty award is named after my lovely little furball, Aria.
Thusly, we have Kate Beckinsale who "regrets being candid about her teenage eating disorder troubles because now she is always asked about anorexia in interviews."
This comment alone would not earn her a Smooshy Cat award (though not being underweight would probably help with all of the anorexia questions). But Kate has a few more pearls of wisdom out there:
Beckinsale feels confident her own daughter won't become an anorexia victim - because her home life is a lot happier than her mother's was in the years following the untimely death of her father, actor Richard Beckinsale.
Glad to hear that, Kate. However, I'd like to give her a little newsflash: Families don't cause anorexia. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a good home life, or that her bony figure will cause her daughter to develop an eating disorder, but a good home life (including my own...mostly) doesn't mean you won't develop anorexia.
Again, this probably wouldn't warrant any more of my usual attention because it expresses misconceptions about AN that are (sadly) common. It's not all that whacked out, really. However, in the last paragraph of the article was seriously the Hope Diamond of ridiculous comments:
The Pearl Harbour star explains: "I believe anorexia, alcoholism and drug abuse in teens are more about what is happening in the home than a problem with images in the media. It's the nice girl's way of becoming a crack whore."
Really, now.
I didn't expect her to say that AN could be triggered by dieting from little fun factoids found in popular magazines, or by expecting your body to look like (insert name of current celebrity suspected of having anorexia here). Those don't cause anorexia. But heaven forbid someone take responsibility out there and say enough is enough.
I'm beginning to understand why anorexia is sometimes confused as a "control issue." It goes something like this: people with anorexia are afraid of food, afraid of what it will to do their bodies, afraid it will make them fat. It looks like control because the person is trying to control their fear of food. A person who is scared of elevators tries to avoid situations where they might have to ride in them. When I was afraid of germs, I would avoid situations where I might get "dirty." People with AN aren't controlling their food intake- that they are completely out-of-control is blatantly obvious. What they ARE trying to control is their exposure to the thing that fears them: food. Specific foods, especially. Foods that are (typically) high-fat and high-calorie, though I've seen plenty of others.
However, I would also like to give a Pretty Kitty Award to Miss Olivia Newton-John for her comments about her daughter Chloe's battle with anorexia:
'All the therapists in the world can't help if the parents aren't present, loving and pro-active.'
Thank you, Miss Newton-John. Thank you for being so incredibly sane.
This concludes the first ever episode of the Smooshy Cat/Pretty Kitty awards.*
*No cats have been harmed or killed in the presentation of these awards.
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