Supermodel and spokeswoman Emme joined a panel of psychologists and media professionals in a discussion of eating disorders and their relation to culture and the media last night at a public forum at Harvard University.
The participants all shared stories of personal experience with eating disorders. Emme addressed in detail the history of eating disorders in her own family.
At 13 years old, Emme said her father told her to strip down. She said he then used a marker to note spots on her body he deemed imperfect, telling her, “You need to watch out for your thighs, hips …”
Emme said she interrupted with, “Dad, stop. No more.”
Emme was born in New York City and was raised in Saudi Arabia. She remembers her mom always having diet problems and looking at the mirror while saying, “Gotta get rid of these thighs.” When her mom divorced Emme’s father, she married once again, this time to a man who tried to keep his own eating disorder a secret.
Her mom died when Emme was 15, and 25 years later, Emme went to therapy with her first major check from modeling.
“Today, $50 billion is spent on the diet industry, 98 percent of which doesn’t work,” Emme said. “I found out that 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat and 80 percent of adult women don’t like what they look like.”
Emme’s statistics were backed up by Dr. Mallika Marshall, a HealthWatch reporter for WBZ-4 News and assistant director at Massachusetts General Hospital of the Chelesa Urgent Care Unit. Marshall was the mediator of the forum.
“Today, there are more than 5 million Americans who suffer from eating disorders,” she said.
Marshall, who didn’t suffer any long-term eating disorder herself, remembers a time in her life when being just a few pounds overweight overwhelmed her.
At about 12-13 years old, Marshall said she was about 10 pounds overweight, and when she took a physical, the doctor said, “‘Mallika, you could stand to lose a few pounds.'”
“At 13, these words were devastating,” she said.
For a few months, she tried to starve herself by eating Cheetos from the school vending machine for the whole day.
“At the time, it seemed logical,” Marshall said. “Fortunately, those days of not eating healthy didn’t last long.”
Sheila Reindl, a psychologist at the Harvard Bureau of Study Counsel, said “reclaiming our culture begins with reclaiming our self.”
Reindl said she doesn’t believe culture alone accounts for all cases of bulimia. Genetics and very early infant eating habits account for a person’s designed weight, Reindl said.
“Our bodies are really designed to weigh a certain amount, much like height,” she said.
In her book, “Sensing the Self: Women’s Recovery from Bulimia,” Reindl interviewed women on their recovery from bulimia.
“It is incredibly hard to recover from eating disorders,” Reindl said.
The problem, she said, is “turning our attention inward.”
Many women “experienced a core sense of shame,” Reindl said. “You encounter annihilating shame, so you concern yourself with the number of calories, grades and awards; the attention goes outward.”
Reindl said shame comes early in life from chronic emotional neglect, criticism and physical and sexual abuse.
Reindl used an example of one of the people she interviewed, whom she called Beth. Beth had a laundry list of activities, and no one helped her know she was doing too much. Reindl said Beth didn’t remember her father putting too much pressure on her, but recalled one time when she had her first or second track race in high school and won second place.
Beth had said she remembered her father criticizing her weight. “Maybe if you lost five pounds, you would win next time,” Reindl said Beth recalled.
“In this case, Beth experienced emotional neglect,” Reindl said. Beth wanted to share her accomplishment with her father, but instead suffered abuses to her body.
Self-esteem is another aspect of eating disorders, Reindl said.
“Self-esteem from others looking at you made the whole week worthwhile,” Reindl recalled another interviewee saying. “The body I had was a lie. I could not have been that weight had I not been bulimic.”
Mourning and grieving is yet another aspect not fully recognized by culture, Reindl said. People recovering from bulimia mourn the loss they experience in thinking they will never be that weight again.
Margaret Lazarus, director of Cambridge Documentary Films and recipient of an Academy Award for best documentary short subject, said told the audience, “We have increased control of media, and it is more and more concentrated.”
“The point is not to bring you entertainment, but buy products and convince people they are not adequate,” Lazarus said. “It’s there to make you feel so lousy you are motivated to buy their products.
“Is it any wonder 80 percent of women feel horrible about their bodies?” Lazarus asked.
As the situation worsens for women, it also worsens for men, she said.
“My boys are looking in the mirror wondering if they are buff enough,” she said.
Emme said it is important for people to use their voices, whether they like or dislike something they see in a magazine.
One Boston University senior, who declined to give her name, raised the issue of insurance inadequacy in covering eating disorders as attempted suicide is covered.
“For me, going through this was hard and shameful. A year ago, I would never have said a thing about this,” she said. “These things are great because it smashes the silence.”