did your friend turn you anorexic?

Question

if so how did it happen?
or if not, how do you think it would happen?
(this is for a paper)
thank you

Answer 1

Yes, my exhusband. I knew he had a younger and thinner girlfriend that he lusted over. He pretended she was "our" friend but I knew better. The affair alone was enough to throw me into anorexia, but one day he brought over a box of clothes from her and told me they were too big for her to wear, maybe I could fit into them. Mentally, that was the last straw. I began eating every Friday, only on Fridays. The rest of the week it was coffee and water.

I felt I couldn't control the affair, but I could control my eating habits. I wasn't overweight at the time, but when the disease reached it's peak, I weighed 80 pounds, a 50 pound loss. My body began to reject food altogether. When it began difficult to hold down food on Fridays, I knew I needed help. I was hospitalized for major depression and there I got treatment for my eating disorder.

Answer 2

No, I don't believe this is possible. True eating disorders are caused by genetic, enviornmental, and family dynamics. Surely people can 'experiment' with behaviors, often bouncing ideas off one another and trying things in packs (why you could see so many girls in boarding school with such issues), but when you separate these girls, they are going to naturally resolve their behaviors. However, someone who has a true eating disorder, has thoughts, compulsions, and obsessions around food beyond just her friends. They get lost in the web of the disease, eventually not even caring about friends. But I am sure that sometimes, it can seem that a friendship causes the problems. I personally believe that even in those cases, both people were pre-disposed to have the problem anyway and that was the enviornmental tipping point (like the person who responded before me, I bet she was likely to have traits of the obsessions before her husband had an affair...although that could be presumptious and I apologize if it is off-base).

Answer 3

It would take more than a friend to do this... it may be the final straw, but there are always underlying family problems or emotional issues. Anorexia does not happen overnight.

Answer 4

Never happen. Food is too glorious to give up!