Perception is certainly a tricky thing.

Tuesday, December 26, 2000

Perception is certainly a tricky thing. This weekend’s predicted temperatures reaching the 30’s sounds like a heat wave, when just two months ago such temperatures would have send chills down our spines.

And of course, the way we perceive ourselves is just as affected by our circumstances.

While we all have those "bad hair days," some individuals have such a warped perception of themselves that they are driven to extremes.

I’m mindful of this because of a Nova special that aired Tuesday night on Iowa Public Television called "Dying to be Thin." It highlighted the struggles of women who have fallen victim to eating disorders. Some had recovered, others were still fighting their disease, but all women told heartbreaking and all to familiar stories.

As a 20-something American woman, I’m constantly struggling with my weight. And while I’m not overweight by medical standards, there are still days that I am overly critical, to out it mildly.

It’s driven me to try weird diet pills in hopes that a miracle could be found in a bottle.

It’s certainly not the safest way I have chosen to lose weight, but, despite my own perceived inadequacies and desires to rid myself of them, I have never been driven to the point of binging and purging or starving myself in order to be thin.

So what does drive people, mostly American women, to that point? How is that some women can say they hate their bodies, and yet do everything they can to protect their health while other women systematically destroy theirs simply to be thin?

Some of the women interviewed for the Nova program felt they were too overweight for their chosen professions – dancers, gymnasts and models. But this problem is so much more prevalent.

Since 1950, anorexia nervous a has increased by 36 percent, according to Nova. And it affects everyone, from adults to teen-agers.

The program was a real eye-opener. Women revealed that they read books on treatment for eating disorders so they could learn more ‘tricks.’ Frail, skeletal girls with sunken eyes looked in the mirror and called the reflection fat. Most women who complete treatment relapse within a year. About .5 percent of those who suffer from anorexia die from complications caused by the disease.

Nova showed bone density imaging of women who had stopped menstruating because of their anorexia. Without the proper levels of hormones caused by menstruation, women quickly loose bone density. The image of a healthy 30-year-old woman looked almost like an x-ray of a skeleton, but more digital. The image of a 30-year-old woman who had not menstruated for 10 years because of anorexia looked more like a ghost than a skeleton. She had virtually no bone density at all.

It truly saddens me that some women actually think it’s worth it; they would risk their health and ultimately their lives simply to be thin. It’s a sad commentary on our society.

One of the women interviewed said one of the most intelligent things I’ve heard in a long time. "Everyone wants to know the secret to being thin because that’s beauty, that’s love, that’s power. That’s a crock."

It is a crock, even though at times, I seem to forget that myself.

Case in point – Karen Carpenter. How beautiful was Karen Carpenter when she died in 1983? How much did she love herself? How much power did she have to save her own life?

The answers are pretty obvious, yet incredibly easy for American women to forget.

Journalists long before me have sounded the battle cry: "Fight back! Don’t value the images of the skeletal model or actress." And all those other barbs targeted at television, cinema and fashion industries. But that’s a simplistic solution, and one, quite frankly, that will never work.

It simply has to be fought on an individual basis with the love, help and acceptance from family and friends. Women have to realize that there is so much more to life than wearing a size 6.

And for the women who disagree with that last statement and are putting their own lives in peril to achieve that impossible standard of perfection – once you realize how wrong you are, please seek professional help. Suffering from an eating disorder for even a short period of time can have lasting effects on your health, but it’s never too late to try to save your own life.

If you’re interested in the Nova program, "Dying to be Thin," you can watch it on the Web at www.pbs.org.

Shawnda Schelinder is the Austin Daily Herald’s associate editor. She can be reached at 434-2235 or by e-mail at shawnda.schelinder@austindailyherald