MovieChat Forums > Thin (2006) Discussion > General Question About Anorexia

General Question About Anorexia

posted 18 years ago by creeese
6 replies | jump to latest

To those who have or know about anorexia: The documentary covers bulimics as well, but this is just a question about anorexia. In the movie the meals were pretty reasonable, but still not a huge amount of food, like what you'd get at most restaurants in the U.S. What would happen if they suddenly ate a lot? What would happen if they started eating stuff like McDonald's and Burger King? I know vomiting can occur from eating too much too fast, but what if the meals got larger and larger just to get some weight back? I just felt like they weren't feeding them enough! I kept wanting them to eat more and more!

[–] klhofer 18 years ago

Well,

The girls were having a hard enough time eating what was on their plate already! Anorexic persons usually have no sense of normal anymore. When it comes to their body and how much food they are eating. Also, the patients probably already hate meal times, if they were forced to eat even more they would probably have emotional breakdowns and might even refuse to go to meal times in the future.

[–] creeese 18 years ago

Would it be better if the meals were higher in fat and carbs just to get some weight? Would that have a bad effect for some reason?

[–] synchrohobbit 18 years ago

The meals were rather small by what I know to be inpatient standards for weight gain meals. The girls and I would be eating about 3000-4000 calories a day with no activity (seriously, all we did was eat) and they looked much bigger than those meals. Maybe because it's in Florida and everyone is skinny anyway...no no just kidding, that's not true. Also, the digestive system gets so backed up because from not eating you may not have a bowel movement for a week or two, and feeding someone like that a lot at once is very, very, very painful (trust me). That dietician is a bitch though. A lot of the problems at that center were from the staff power tripping.

[–] Roecc 18 years ago

When someone with anorexia is on their starvation cycle, the stomach slows down. It shrinks, and goes through delayed gastric emptying. That means that they feel full longer on smaller amounts. It is a survival mechanism. I would think their meals start small and grow in size.

[–] byspring 17 years ago

They are actually eating a lot of calories. It is hidden in the food.
Did you not see what they were making them eat? The stuff is loaded with sugar and butter and fried in oil etc.

Anorexics get (like the other poster said) about 3000-4000 calories a day from their meals when in recovery, even if it doesn't look like it. Thats about double the amount that is recommended for an active adult, in order for them to gain sufficient weight.

But to answer your question they would probably vomit and have digestive problems and generally feel ill if they ate a big quantity of food (rather than calories) as the stomach has shrank (like the other poster said too)

Most restaurants in the U.S are far too generous with their portions anyway..

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[–] smartyp17 17 years ago

its not about giving them bad foods, its about promoting healthy foods and slowly increasing their metabolism and body chemistry to accept the food and process it and become comfrotable with eating.....have you ever done the reverse and tried to go on a drastic diet.....and found it hard not to eat....its the same....for them to take one bite is hard so they have to work at getting the girls to want to eat and to accept eating....other centers force feed you and make you drink canned beverages (supplemtents.....god sustacle is the worse) and they continue to make food the enemy....because you have to eat everything or drink...i really think renthrew has the right idea of letting the girls slowly eat better again,......if i went to that facility i might not have wasted my whole junior high and high schools years.......into college.....so i give renthrew "props" for their system!

its more than gaining weight too.....eating disorders are not just about food........you cant fix them by making them eat and gain weight....you have to work on the underlining problems...

and yes the nutrionalist was a bit-h. (they usually are in centers)