Eating Disorders

We in the West consume many times as much as those in the rest of the world. Obesity is rife in our culture. Yet there are other eating disorders that are also peculiar to our culture: anorexia – self starvation - and bulimia – binge eating followed by vomiting. This week I've been preparing some notes on this for college. Here is a taste of the sort of thing we will be discussing:

2-3% of young girls lack peace about their eating. About 90-95% of anorexics and bulimics are female and more than 90% of most severe cases of anorexia start in teenaged years. Bulimia tends to start a little later than anorexia. In the UK it is thought that about 1% of school girls and female students suffer from anorexia and between 1-2% with bulimia. Cases of eating disorders have increased steadily from 50s until 90s when they levelled out. Bulimia has now overtaken anorexia. But for the troubled anorexic or bulimic there is hope and comfort to those who seek help through psychotherapy. Though psychoanalysis may give some insight to those with eating disorders, greater hope is offered today by cognitive-behaviour therapy which can be used in conjunction with medication.

Spiders

I've just been painting and colouring with my two year old daughter today. The theme has been one of her favourite creatures... spiders. I found out while we were paiting that she's very good at singing all the words to 'Incy Wincy Spider'.

We were doing handprints and this one was the one that most looked like a spider. They are my hands by the way!

What do you think?

Profound Thought on Attachment

Callie is more attached to her mother than to me. She’ll kick and scream if I try to wash her or put her to bed when Nettes is in the house. But she’s fine when we’re in on our own. I remember at one time when she was really tiny it was the other way round but that didn’t last for long. The times when we first left her on her own are a dim and distant memory now. Like when we first left her at nursery. But she’s got attached to the people there now, so she’s fine about it now.

When we’ve been somewhere that she likes she just doesn’t want to come home. She really wriggles when I put her in her buggy. It makes me wonder to what extent I’m like that too. What am I attached to? What would I have a hard time giving up if I really had to? I was just thinking about the earthquake in Pakistan. What would it be like to lose everything? Could I cope with that or am I just too attached to material things; things that in the end don’t bring true satisfaction?

Intellectually Speaking

As a college lecturer I obviously enjoy things that are mentally stimulating. But looking after my two year old can sometimes be a mind numbing experience: Watching Cbeebies, reading the same story for the third time, not to mention the housework. It’s frustrating not getting the time to read and study more at the moment about psychology, my Christian faith or any other subject for that matter. My natural inclination is towards intellectually engaging my mind but it’s a matter of grabbing the time when it’s available and wondering if I’m being selfish.

Ironically, one of the thrills that I get is seeing my daughter develop intellectually herself and understand what happening. Just the other day she was pretending to show her drawing to her teddy and turning the picture round so he could see it. Before she had held it the wrong way now she could image what he could see rather than just assume he could see what she could. As a psychologist I know that this is overcoming ‘egocentricity’. But it’s just great to see her do this. It is also great to hear her language developing – becoming more complex in its structures. She’s going to be a little intellectual too.

A part time home-dad

Working part time and looking after my toddler is in some ways an ideal situation. In a Mothercare survey 69% of fathers said that they would like to be able to give up work to look after their children. It was a very obvious decision for us; I could do more hours teaching if I wanted to but I wasn’t obliged to. I didn’t involve giving up a job or making a big deal about going part time from a full time contract. For some dads doing this could involve a major change in direction of their career but there was no need for any ‘mid-life crisis’ type decisions for me.

We’ve been thinking about the possibility of her going full time in nursery next year. Though I love spending time with her and I am sure that my time with her is a major fulfilment of my life the thought have having more time to write, prepare teaching and perhaps even develop this blog more is very tempting. I feel that having time to journal my thoughts about psychological formation is something that will not only produce material for others to learn from but also help me grow.