Are you in a loss as to how to help a friend with an eating disorder?

Many of you may be in contact with someone suffering with an eating disorder, and if you aren't right now, you may be in the future. I am often asked for advice as to how to help them, and am more than happy always to advise. I gave the following advice today, and I believe it may be of some help.

If your friend is suffering, and is receiving professional help what you have to remember is that there is a really deep, underlying issue that is the reason for her illness. Hard and wierd though this may seem, the best thing for you to do is not to asddress or discuss food. She will only be able to eat when she is happy and healed in her mind, emotionally. What you can try and do is come from her angle. Tell her you know she is really unhappy, ask her if she can try and describe to you how she is feeling, what she is worried about and what scares her. When people are suffering with anorexia its all too easy for friends, family and carers to take a strict, authoratative role and tell them what to do, its all too easy to see the sufferer as a stubborn person causing trouble and being difficult. They're not. They're very hurt, very distressed, frightened, bewldered and deeply sad. By the sounds of it you're one of the last people she still trusts and the key is for you both to mainitain that trust. When you're with her, see her and treat her like she is: your best friend who is hurt. Don't treat her or act around her any differrently now she is ill to before. This is key to her recovery. See her and treat her for the friend and who she is. She is being consumed by an illness she doesn't understand. You need to remind her that the girl she is is still there.


It is a long fight for everybody. But it is a fight with a victorious outcome... if that is what you ALL choose.


Love and warmth,


Anna - Katharina xxx

Never perfect

Firstly, I am REALLY sorry there have been no posts for a while… I contracted campylobacter (severe African food poisoning) whilst in Zanzibar and so was ill with that and then moved back to uni… none of which are justifiable excuses but I’m back now!!

The amount of friends and friends of friends who have come to me feeling fat / ugly / worthless / beneath someone’s league / jealous of other girls’ looks… is probably now into triple figures. One friend in particular, on one occasion when loads of pictures were being taken, refused to look at the camera and in every photo was shot with her hair over her face. I used to be the same. I used to think I was so worthless that I was below everyone else. I used to look in the mirror and repulse. I believed the very curves of my female body were the reason I was a waste of space.

But now? Now, when I look into the mirror, I actually like the person who looks back… actually, I love her. I look in the mirror and I see the little girl who hurt when her brother died, the little girl who believed starvation would bring her happiness, the little girl who cried out for love when the world was black.

Each one of you who have ever criticised yourself has a little girl or boy inside of you who is hurting.  You were born into the world as a tiny baby, no different to any other child. You were perfect, just like every other baby. As you grew up and took in the world around you, you started to compare, to criticise and to hurt that small child, telling her or him that they should be thinner, more beautiful, fitter, cleverer… and like any person who is criticized, they hurt. And the more they hurt, and the more they cried inside of you, the more critical you became because you sensed something wasn’t right.

I have news for all of you. You are the person who is with you life long. You are the person who was there with you when you were born, and will be with you when you die. People will come in and ouf of your life, but you are the only one who is there for the whole of it. So long as you are breathing, you have yourself. Imagine living with a flat mate who you couldn’t stand, who bullied and tormented you. You’d move out, right? Don’t make yourself live in torment from your own judgement. You are perfect, every single one of you. People are truly happy when they live with someone they love; when they love, and are loved in return. If you want to be happy, you need to start with yourself. If you hate yourself you are going to be unhappy life long. There may be parts of yourself you don’t like – my nose looks like a broken eagle’s (!) and as for my belly button… don’t even go there!! But you can STILL love the bits you hate because it’s all part of you.

The day you wake up and are happy in your own company, happy being you, that is the day you will enjoy the day. Start by thinking of that little girl or boy inside of you who is hurting, start by looking after them. They need you to tell them they’re ok.  Have a picture of you when you were a small baby by your bed. When you wake up in the morning, and when you go to bed at night, remember that little baby is still there in you, and is in desperate need of love.