Trigger warning: This post deals with eating disorders and may be triggering for some readers.
An Australian politician has shared her own struggle with an eating disorder to help us understand this life-threatening disease.
The head of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and former ACT chief minister, Kate Carnell, has turned the national spotlight on the tragic reality of eating disorders in an interview with ABC’s 7.30, where she shared details of her own battle with anorexia nervosa as a teenager.
“What I remember is feeling sick all the time, having tension headaches all the time, feeling really rotten about myself, about what I was doing to others in my life, and having an absolute focus on food,” Carnell told 7:30 host Leigh Sales.
“I was stick thin, but people would say ‘wow, you’re looking so great.’ I wasn’t. I was looking really skinny.”
Related content: Former tennis legend speaks about her eating disorder for the first time.
At the age of 15, Carnell left her Brisbane-based family to reside in a psychiatric hospital in Sydney.
Carnell said this decision was difficult for her parents, but “What were they going to do? They thought I was going to die.”
“Year nine was doctors, hospitals, nausea, vomiting, not much school, and a family who walked on egg shells,” Carnell said.
“I thought that if I started to eat, I would lose control, and the thought of putting on weight again was absolutely petrifying.”
Related link: “I suffered anorexia and I think we should screen our models for eating disorders.”
Now, Carnell is raising awareness of this fatally misunderstood disease. She points out the consequences — both physical and mental — can be lifelong.
“Food is still much more of a focus in my life than it should be. I still have to have little discussions with myself about body image because I still have a view… I still naturally think I’m too fat,” she said.
Carnell also spoke about the negative influence of the fashion on “ideal” body types, and the lack of information about such a common and serious illness.
“It is hard to understand how you can’t put a piece of food in your mouth, chew it up and swallow it. How hard can that be?
“Well I’ll tell you what, when you’ve got anorexia, it’s like moving a mountain.”
The Butterfly Foundation has released a report estimating that 913,000 Australians are suffering from eating disorders, and 1812 people die from the disease annually.
The foundation also calculated eating disorders to cost nearly $70 billion every year, in health care costs and lost productivity.
If this post brings up any issues for you, you can contact The Butterfly Foundation for eating disorders via their website or on their National Support Line (1800 33 4673).
Top Comments
This is an important story to share, one that shows sufferers aren't weak and insipid, but generally ill. One of my biggest, BIGGEST peeves is people using "anorexic" as a general way of describing someone's appearance.
This is much more than what you look like. This is a feeling of helplessness and the seizure of control over something (in this case, food) and fixating on that sense of control. It is an illness, not a body type, and it deserves to be treated with sensitivity and understanding, not derision.
I do hope that one day Kate is absolutely free of the intrusive thoughts about her body. Those are the death throes of what you have overcome, Kate. Keep going!