Leni Reiss and Nadine Bonner
Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle - June, 1995
In a Barbie world.... Stand in line at the supermarket,
and you're bombarded by tabloids and women's magazines. "Lose 20 pounds in
two weeks," screams one cover headline. Meanwhile, the cover photo is a
four-layer chocolate cake offering "desserts to die for."
The tension between these two priorities - being thin
and enjoying good food - has created an epidemic of eating disorders.
Psychologist Stacey Nye, who specializes in treating those disorders, explains
that "even though we're more educated about eating disorders now, it hasn't
helped us protect ourselves from developing them, because we're seeing them
in younger and younger children."
An additional conflict between Jewish culture, in which
food plays a central role, and the general culture, which advocates the ideal
of thinness, creates a compounded vulnerability for Jewish women, according
to Nye. To explore these issues, Nye attended "Food, Body Image and Judaism
- A Conference on Disorders and Resources for Change." The conference, held
earlier this year in Philadelphia, was sponsored by the KOLOT Center for
Jewish Women and Gender Studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
and the Renfew Center, a women's psychiatric hospital in Philadelphia. It
was sponsored in part by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia with
support from the Germantown Jewish Center.
"I specialize in eating disorders and body image,"
explains Nye. "Being a Jewish woman myself, I wanted to learn more about
what particular struggles (exist) for Jewish women. Jewish women have particular
cultural vulnerabilities that make them more at risk."
Conference workshops included "Zaftig Women in a Barbie
Doll Culture," "Chopped Liver and Chicken Soup: Soothing Food for the Traumatized
Soul" and "Bagel Politics: Jewish Women, American Culture and Jewish
Culture."
"If we want to follow our tradition, we have to revolve
our lives around food," says Nye. "But if we want to assimilate, we have
to look different."
Catherine Steiner-Adair, director of education, prevention
and treatment at the Harvard Eating Disorders Center, points out that basic
hereditary and physiological factors make it almost impossible for most women,
including Jewish women, to conform to the Barbie-doll ideal.
"One percent of our population is genetically predisposed
to be really tall, really thin and busty. And it's not us - it's the
Scandinavians," says Steiner-Adair.
But experts note that societal and psychological influences
make women strive to emulate unrealistic prototypes in terms of
appearance.
"It's really hard not to buy into the general culture,"
admits Nye. "Girls are bombarded by messages that tell them appearance defines
their identity. We have 8-year-old girls on diets. Body image dissatisfaction
and distortion are rampant in our culture."
Steiner-Adair estimates that "every morning 80 percent
of women wake up with body loathing. Eighty percent of the women in America
don't relate to their bodies in a healthy, respectful, loving way."
"Stop worrying, and meet me at the water cooler"
She says that combining this general obsession with
"weightism" and anti-Semitic stereotypes results in a greater vulnerability
to eating disorders among Jewish women.
"If you have a Jewish girl who's feeling wobbly about
herself and who feels a lot of pressure on her to assimilate, to achieve,
it's very easy for a girl to say, 'I can't be all those things. I know what
I'll be good at: I'll be thin,' " Steiner-Adair says.
Nye specializes in helping people accept their bodies
and stop dieting.
"I help people to normalize their eating, not by dieting."
She encourages her clients to eat normal, healthy food and to stop eating
when they're full.
"I practice gentle nutrition, staying away from a dieting
mentality." Nye also encourages increased activity rather than exercise,
which she says has "a bad reputation with some people" - almost like
medicine.
"I help people expand their identities. To explore
what there is to feel good about," Nye adds.
Nye frequently speaks in schools to educate young people
about accepting their own body image and that of others. "They're getting
bombarded about looking a certain way. The reality is that not everyone is
meant to be thin. Weight falls in a normal curve like anything else. Some
people are intelligent, others are less intelligent. You can't make yourself
taller."
She says one aspect in Jewish culture that is helpful
is the emphasis on knowledge and excelling in scholastic settings, rather
than on the athletic field.
Family plays a role
A Los Angeles-based psychotherapist who specializes
in addictive behaviors, Judith Hodor finds, "more likely than not," that
her patients with eating disorders come from Jewish homes. There often is
an "enmeshment" in the Jewish family, she says, where one member, usually
a child, feels pressured to be a reflection of the others.
"There is a tendency," she says, for parents to try
to create a perfect existence as a positive reflection of themselves. This
"demand for perfection" creates huge pressure on a child, who might try to
starve herself as a "means of escape." This is one area, she explains, where
the child can actually be in control.
Hodor cites an instance during a session in her office
when the patient, a teenager, "actually was fading in and out due to lack
of food" and the mother ran out to purchase milk, bananas and other edibles.
"When she returned," Hodor recalls, "she looked at her daughter with tears
in her eyes and said, 'You have to stop this. You are my reason for living.'
"
"If I was anyone's reason for living, I might well
want to disappear too," Hodor notes ruefully.
Within the context of the Jewish home, Hodor finds,
there is an emphasis on intellectualism - and food. In other groups she tends
to find "more aloofness, which, in a sense, protects family members from
each other." But then again, she notes, they often have their own "isms,
such as alcoholism" with which to deal.
Common to many cultures
Taking issue with the premise that eating disorders
are more prevalent within Judaism, Phoenix psychiatrist Jill Zweig reports
that a significant percentage of her patients who suffer from anorexia or
bulimia are not Jewish.
"These ailments are pervasive in all cultures and all
socio-economic levels," she finds. "Food plays an important role in the
traditions of many cultures," she points out.
"Adolescence is a time of turmoil," Zweig says, "a
time of seeking individuality and separation. This typically creates some
conflict within the family and this is normal, expected - and to some extent,
healthy."
But, she warns, those with eating disorders tend to
internalize and distort suggestions that might be as innocuous as "cut down
on junk food." Determining "what actually goes into the mouth" is one way
that someone can be in total control. This can lead to such inappropriate
thought and pattern behaviors as, for example, cutting out all junk food,
all meat, all fats - "and then they are down to three rice cakes a day,"
Zweig says.
Individuals suffering from anorexia and bulimia constantly
are thinking about food, Zweig says, and with both there is focus on body
image as a source of self-esteem.
"The difference is how the individual goes about obtaining
control. The anorexic constantly restricts food intake; the bulimic may binge,
regularly or periodically, and then purge."
Parents who fear that their children may be prone to,
or suffering from, an eating disorder should be alert to significant changes
in their children's eating patterns, such as eliminating certain foods from
their diet, skipping meals, finding excuses not to eat with the family; also,
hair and/or weight loss, and cessation of menstruation are signals. Warning
signs of purging include locking themselves in the bathroom after meals,
along with the odor of vomit.
Patients prone to eating disorders are influenced by
media-created images portraying the ideal woman along the lines of Ally McBeal,
Zweig says, adding: "Dissatisfaction with their bodies comes down to a comparison
with image. They look in the mirror and see their own body distorted. That
is the illness part of it. They don't see what others see."
The challenge for parents, Zweig suggests, is to work
on effective communication, "to go for realistic goal-setting."
To that end, she emphasizes the importance of tension-free
family meals and the need to teach youngsters to make appropriate food
choices.
"Fat-free items don't necessarily fall into that category,"
she says. "Rethink what has been drummed into us regarding the craze for
fat-free foods," she proposes.
"The truth is that fat is necessary in moderation.
The healthiest diets include some fat."
Both Hodor and Zweig advocate a team approach in their
work with patients who have eating disorders. When appropriate, they confer
and collaborate with dietitians, family physicians, gynecologists, family
members and friends.
Nadine Bonner is a staff writer for the Wisconsin Jewish
Chronicle in Milwaukee. Marilyn Silverstein of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent
also contributed to this story.
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