Eating Disorders Plague the Orthodox World

"Very often, young men looking for brides in the Orthodox community call a girl’s parents and ask for her dress size."

First off, how horrible and shallow. Second, is it even decent to ask a woman's dress size? Interesting that these women can't show skin, but people around them are able and willing to discuss details of their bodies. Perhaps potential suitors will next ask bust size, too? (I mean, that number is really built into dress sie, but maybe they'd like to know that separately.)

Are you serious?  The orthodox community is actually addressing a problem rather than hoping it just goes away?  The times of the Messiah must be close.  Or else someone just spoke to someone 'on the outside', accidentally. 

There was a little spark there for a moment.

While it's hard to argue with powerful anecdotal evidence, this directly contradicts a study done a few years ago at the University of Haifa, which showed that the more religious a Jewish girl is, the less likely she is to develop an eating disorder. [jpost.com]
- So while I know it's probably a problem for them as much as any other community of women (sigh), I'm not sure about the assertions that it's significantly worse, or that Orthodoxy lends itself to the problem. Unless a lot has changed in under two years, or it's simply worse in America than in the chareidi community in Israel. Either way, I'm glad people are dealing with the problem rather than pretending it doesn't exist at all.

This truly brings up the question as to the nature of what assimilation really is, or where it is. Externally, clearly the orthodox try not to assimilate, but it's actually hard not to, no matter how much protection or how many shields one puts up. This is a clue, not conclusive, but a clue that the internal thought processes are very similar to the collective consciousness (yeah, I know, no proof that it even exists) of the prevailing culture. It raises important questions, not in an abstract way, but for the purposes of diagnosis. What are thoughts, how do they move, how do they take root, so many questions we need to answer.

Eating disorders are not a product of pop culture Naftali.  The need to control one's environment (or what one can within their environment) combined with genetics seem to cause eating disorders and other control disorders such as OCD.  If there is little in a woman's environment that is under her control, especially in a restrictive community and she happens to feel like she is less in control than even others in her community, she may resort to the one thing she does have control over, which is her intake of food.  This may also be a way of controlling her sexuality, fertility, etc. 

On my route to work every morning, I pass by a married frum woman power walking at 6:15 a.m.  She is covered head to toe, but when I am stopped in traffic, I can see her face and I can tell she is very thin.  I have lived with the disorder for about 19 years now.  I know what I am seeing in that woman every morning and I know that she is dying inside.  I hope that, one day, she will be reached by this program.  I am afraid I have nothing to offer her.  

Yes, I used to treat this disorder, years ago. I just chose not to explain it in your terms. But there is definitely a cultural component to this. And that's what I focused on. You chose to identify another problem in the orthodox community, and the two certainly can come together at the dinner table.

Like I said it raises lots of questions. I chose to raise the series of questions focusing on keeping out the influences of the secular world, that these efforts have for the most part failed when it comes to the soul and heart. You raise questions about more complex feelings that arise, in both worlds--and you framed the questions in psychological and biochemical terms. That's fine. Like I said, it's a long and hard discussion that few people are willing to have.

Naftali, can I ask, without getting too specific, can you describe your qualifications for treating eating disorders? You can PM me if you prefer.

But I'll PM just the same, but I might not get to it today.  But I will say it was in the days when paradoxical therapy was allowed and thought to be wise--as opposed to 'just shocking and illogical' in today's linear world.

They're still raising money for the project:

http://www.ou.org/index.php/ylc/article/11215/
prageri@ou.org, 14th Floor, Eleven Broadway, New York, NY 10004.

--DT

Naftali - paradoxical therapy is not shocking and illogical - it's harmful.  It is horrible.  I'm glad you're not treating people with eating disorders anymore.

Faith 

When it was the treatment of choice. I'm not going to go into details, but there were quite a few successes with this. People don't do it anymore. Like I said, it is out of favor because of fear of lawsuits, not because of whether it works or not. I'm not talking about just eating disorders, but essentially all work and methods pioneered by Milton Erikson. You will note that the numbers of such disorders seems to be on the rise. So linear treatment has no particular bragging rights on previous treatments.

The biggest breakthroughs in therapy has come through biochemistry, better medicines.

And, if you say the problem of eating disorders is an issue of control, and I agree, why is paradoxical therapy so horrible? The idea is for the patient to no longer wish to exercise this overcontrol of their environment. To me, each patient was a little different than every other patient. I did not do 'one size fits all'. The only thing of concern was that the patient relinquish this harmful need for control, which is different than a healthy exercise of control.

Also, why are you angry? I simply said that there is a cultural component to this disease, and there is. You said there was more to it, and I agreed. I was simply saying that I am familiar with the disorder, and not from a distance. I said there used to be another method of treatment, which there was, and that it is no longer in favor, which it isn't--but that's not because it didn't work. Do you think we were trained to hurt people, do you think there weren't papers published which documented the successes? Do you think these methods were not supervised?

I stopped doing the work because I felt other therapists were more concerned with lawyers than their own patients, and that at that moment, when the patient became the secondary or even tertiary focus of therapy, I thought that perhaps more harm was being done than good. I've done nothing or said anything wrong. Or maybe I have--but you'll have to tell me.

I'm very glad that there is action here and I hope that people are helped because of it. It can be all the more horrific knowing that what you're doing is religiously wrong as well as everything else.

www.jewish-bulimic.blogspot.com

I've known eating disordered women who took offense at the idea that their disorders sprang in some simple manner from fashion magazines or the like. Understandable. I've never heard anyone say that there is a direct line from pop culture to disordered eating.

But we do know that eating disorders exist in some cultures and not in others. This clearly underscores that it is culturally mediated. It may be complicated, but culture is definitely involved.

This is so well established that I'm not sure I understand the upset in the comments section on this article.

Thanks to the author, by the way. 

Good article!  Is Twerski the M.D. who is Orthodox Rabbi as well?  I have a couple of books authored by Dr. Twerski, M.D., Psychiatrist.  I am a psychotherapist trained to be careful when reading about "disorders".  Any doubt in reliability of your information vanished at once when I saw "Twerski".  Thanks again for well presented information.

Yitzhak