Anorexia Nervosa Quotes

“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk

“...she was afraid of losing her shape, spreading out, not being able to contain herself any longer, beginning (that would be worst of all) to talk a lot, to tell everybody, to cry.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman

“Looking down, she became aware of the water, which was covered with a film of calcinous hard-water particles of dirt and soap, and of the body that was sitting in it, somehow no longer quite her own. All at once she was afraid that she was dissolving, coming apart layer by layer like a piece of cardboard in a gutter puddle.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman

“When in a state of hunger, one ought not to undertake labor.”
― Hippocrates, The Aphorisms of Hippocrates

“Emma says her illness was a kind of self-hypnosis which obliterated the outside world, a way of escaping life and reducing its proportions to what she could manage.”
― Carol Lee, To Die For

“No one could see the thoughts when the body looked normal to them. The voice wanted it to just be the two of us. It wanted to hide. If no one saw it, then no one would believe me.
No one would ask.”
― Rachael Rose Steil, Running in Silence: My Drive for Perfection and the Eating Disorder That Fed It

“Jack hit the floor and fired off push-ups until he thought he'd pass out. The spinning behind his eyes felt good. He'd gotten by with a half grapefruit (35 calories) at breakfast, because his mom was such an emotional wreck before driving him to the hospital. She didn't argue over the half cup of oatmeal (110 calories), which he dumped in the sink before polishing off the last of his red M&Ms, his go-to food when life got sucky.”
― Sherry Shahan, Skin and Bones

“Mais quel crime ai-je donc commis ? Ai-je tué quelqu'un et ensuite perdu la mémoire ? Ai-je tué, volé ? Non, j’ai fait un choix. Il ne les concerne pas, ce n’est pas eux qui en souffrent, je suis inoffensive. Je les déteste ceux qui disent que je leur fais du mal en me laissant mourir. Ils ne peuvent pas savoir, je ne leur dirai pas, d'ailleurs ils ne m'aiment plus, ce n'est pas ainsi qu'on aime.”
― Valérie Valère, Le Pavillon des enfants fous

“As time went on, the line between my Eating Disorder and my self became so blurred that I could not see my Eating Disorder as something separate from me. I lost touch of what it felt like or looked like to eat “normally.” I didn’t know what hunger felt like—because I only knew what hunger felt like. I didn’t know what feeling satisfied felt like, because I only knew what full beyond physical comfort felt like. I had no idea what other people ate or didn’t eat, how often or when, how much or in what combination. My body became such a confusing place to live inside, and I often didn’t recognize it as my own.”
― Rachel Havekost, Where the River Flows: A memoir of loss, love & life with an Eating Disorder

“The sexual competition model of eating disorders has two interlocking components. The first component is based on the universal male preference for a nubile -hourglass- body shape and the fact that women tend to accumulate body weight as they age, with the result that relative thinness is a reliable cue of youth and reproductive potential. The second component is specific to modern societies: as fertility declines and the age of reproduction shifts upward, women tend to retain an attractive nubile shape for longer, which increases the importance of thinness as an attractive display. At the same, a number of converging trends contribute to intensify real and perceived mating competition among women, especially for long-term partners. Specifically, socially imposed monogamy reduces the number of available men; urban living dramatically increases the number of potential desirable competitors; and the media paint a visual landscape full of unrealistically thin, attractive women. The net outcome of these social changes is a process of runaway sexual competition that leads to an exaggerated desire for thinness in girls and women. Ironically, the process is largely driven by female intrasexual competition rather than direct male choice, and the resulting -ideal body- may be too thin to be maximally attractive to men.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“Mortality in Eating Disorders is partly caused by the medical complications of starvation and bingeing-purging, but suicide risk is also elevated. Suicide accounts for about 20% of deaths in anorexic patients; unsurprisingly, the risk is higher in AN-Bingeing/Purging than in AN-Restricted.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“I think maybe they come out into the grounds in nightwear. But no, in typical anorexic stype they have read the fashion magazines literally. This is their version of thin girls in strappy clothes.
The girl in the petticoat talks to me, as Emma has done on occsasion, in a rather grand style, as if she is a 'lady' of some substance and I a visiting guest.
Do they chat much about clothes? I ask Emma in the car.
She shakes her head.
So, does she, Emma, see the difference between underwear or nightwear and 'going out' clothes?
'Yes,' she says, her voices strained again. 'But it's one of the things you don't know properly when you're ill and confused. You see these pictures and the people in the magazines are real for you.”
― Carol Lee, To Die For

“The reasons for Emma's illness and for her decision to allow life in, rather than die, are intertwined and involve the beginnings of her feelings of belonging, of safety and of competence to be in the world.”
― Carol Lee, To Die For

“The cultural assumption seems to be that there’s something wrong with wanting to eat. Appetite is something to be fended off with willpower or chemically. We’re locked in a war with our own hunger which is the primal force that sustains us. Of course, the talk shows and magazines aim mainly at women who make up the vast majority of those with weight issues. We’re socialized to fear our appetites whether they’re for food or sex or power. We’re taught from birth to make ourselves small and dainty, to not take up room. Can this kind of a culturation cause anorexia? I don’t think so. Can it trigger someone who is vulnerable? No doubt about it.” Brave Girl Eating: A Family's Struggle with Anorexia”
― Harriet Brown

“Runaway competition for thinness generates an evolutionary mismatch, which drives up the risk of maladaptive eating symptons; in particular Abed suggested that AN arises as a direct consequence of competition for thiness, whereas BN may stem from attempts to maintaina nubile body shape.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“Runaway competition for thinness generates an evolutionary mismatch, which drives up the risk of maladaptive eating symptons; in particular Abed suggested that AN arises as a direct consequence of competition for thinness, whereas BN may stem from attempts to maintaina nubile body shape.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“Androgens in Eating Disorders show an intriguing pattern: while anorexics tend to have low testosterone, there are indications that bulimia is associated with exposure to high levels of prenatal androgens. In addition, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOs, a condition caused by elevated androgens) has been associated with increased BN risk but decreased AN risk.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“A better understanding of eating disorders and their symptons can be gained by considering the nature of two self-reinforcing cycles that may be labeled the self-starvation and bingeing-purging cycle.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“Ferguson and colleagues also reviewed that thin models in the media have comparatively small effects on body dissatisfaction, and mainly on women with preexisting weight concerns and/or high neuroticism. Instead, the largest and most consistent effects are those of mating competition in the peer network -that is, the number of attractive and available women in one's inmediate social environment (for example, friends and colleagues).”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“The pubertal surge of sex hormones plays a major role in the onset of eating symptoms in females, as shown by the fact that the heritability of Eating Disorders increases sharply at mid-puberty in girls, but not in boys. In particular, binge eating is strongly modulated by the interaction of estrogens and progesterone acrosss the menstrual cycle, consistent with the role played by these hormones in the regulaion of hunger and feeding. Both the frequency of bingeing and its heritability peak after ovulation, in tandem with rising progesterone levels.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“A thinness ideal at the social and individual levels is not the only precondition for the bingeing-purging cycle: bingeing require easy access to large amounts of high-calorie food, and most purging methods are impractical without modern plumbing and sanitation.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“Food restriction does not necessarily lead to self-starvation; in fact, a common effect of sustained weight loss is a tendency to binge whenever food is available (typically with feelings of automaticity and loss of control). Common triggers for binges include tempting food and excessive hunger, but also interpersonal stressors and strong emotions. To compensate for impulsive overeating, some people start to adopt purging behaviors such as vomiting and laxative use. The combination of bingeing and purging may lead to the onset of a self-reinforcing cycle. Especially in the early stages of the cycle, bingeing and purging cause intense guilt, shame and anxiety. Those negative emotions may then trigger more binges or prompt renewed attempts to restrict food, which ultimately end up strengthening the cycle. Bingeing and purging can be rewarding on a number of levels. On the one hand, these symptoms relieve anxiety, boredom, emptiness, and other negative feelings; on the other hands, they prevent stressful interactions with other people (e.g. staying home from school or work to binge), attract attention from family and friends, and may provide a way to communicate one's ill-defined psychological distress in concrete terms. Over time, the behavioral sequence of bingeing and purging becomes more automatic and less emotionally intense, but also harder to interrupt.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“The self-starvation cycle has been documented across time and cultures, including non-Western ones. In modern Western societies, concerns with fat and thinness are the main reason for weight loss and probably explain the moderate rise of Anorexia Nervosa incidence across the second half of the 20th century. However, cases of self-starvation with spiritual and religious motivations have been common in Europe at least since the Middle Ages (and include several Catholic saints, most famously St. Catherine of Siena). In some Asian cultures, digestive discomfort is often cited as the initial reason for restricting food intake, but the resulting syndrome has essentially the same symptoms as anorexia in Western countries.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“Runaway competition for thinness generates an evolutionary mismatch, which drives up the risk of maladaptive eating symptoms; in particular Abed suggested that AN arises as a direct consequence of competition for thinness, whereas BN may stem from attempts to maintaina nubile body shape.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“The pubertal surge of sex hormones plays a major role in the onset of eating symptoms in females, as shown by the fact that the heritability of Eating Disorders increases sharply at mid-puberty in girls, but not in boys. In particular, binge eating is strongly modulated by the interaction of estrogens and progesterone acrosss the menstrual cycle, consistent with the role played by these hormones in the regulation of hunger and feeding. Both the frequency of bingeing and its heritability peak after ovulation, in tandem with rising progesterone levels.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“The epidemiological evidence for sexual dimorphism in humans is extensive. Sexual dimorphism in body composition is already evident in infancy: males tend to be heavier than females at birth and have longer bodies and larger head circumferences. By early adulthood, sexual dimorphism in fat distribution is highly evident.
These are the evolutionary roots of male sensitivity to visual cues of female physical attractiveness and also of women's motivation to display, preserve and improve their physical attractiveness and thus increase their perceived mate value. The extreme end of this adaptation gives rise to the risk of EDs in the modern environment.”
― Riadh Abed, Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health

“To understand mismatch, we should note that yhe human lineage lived for 99% of its evolutionary history in relatively small, mobile, foraging, kin-based groups. It is under these conditions that human psychological mechanisms were shaped by selection. The seeds for mismatch were sown with the advent of agriculture, which resulted in permanently settled living around 10,000 - 20,000 years ago, and this radically altered the human physical and social environment with major implications for eating disorders EDs.”
― Riadh Abed, Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health

“To understand mismatch, we should note that the human lineage lived for 99% of its evolutionary history in relatively small, mobile, foraging, kin-based groups. It is under these conditions that human psychological mechanisms were shaped by selection. The seeds for mismatch were sown with the advent of agriculture, which resulted in permanently settled living around 10,000 - 20,000 years ago, and this radically altered the human physical and social environment with major implications for eating disorders EDs.”
― Riadh Abed, Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health

“The Sexual Competition Hypothesis is based on the fact that throughout human evolutionary history the female shape has been a reliable indicator of the female's reproductive history and reproductive potential. The same is not true for men, where physical appearance, while relevant, is much less useful in assessing a man's reproductive potential. The visual signal for a female's peak reproductive potential in ancestral environments was the female's nubile shape, which was generally short-lived and declined with the repeated cycles of gestation and lactation.”
― Riadh Abed, Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health

“Don't cry because it's over, SMILE because it happened”
― Dr. Suess