Ms Harriet Parsons:

An eating disorder affects every aspect of how a person functions. When a person has an eating disorder his or her behaviours around food become disordered. These can be things like not eating to restricting food, binging or purging which could be over-exercising or vomiting. Any one of those behaviours can be particular to a person. There is a whole array of compulsive eating behaviours. There is also a psychological so the person’s thinking becomes distorted. So he or she has very distorted thinking, which drives his or her behaviours. Next, there is the physical part. I mean because the person is not eating properly so he or she is affected physically. Last, there is the emotional part and that is key. Very simply, a person uses disordered eating behaviours as a way to manage and cope with feelings. So in that way one can say that an eating disorder is a destructive coping mechanism but it is something that a person does because it makes him or her feel better so it functions for him or her.

The Chairman is right that an eating disorder is not just an emaciated person who restricts food. An eating disorder can be anyone of any size who engages in disordered eating behaviours for a reason. We all engage in disordered eating behaviours but when a person has an eating disorder those disordered eating behaviours are compulsive. That means that the person cannot not do them and he or she feels that he or she must do them like an alcoholic. So an alcoholic feels that he or she must drink and likewise a person with an eating disorder, say binging, so he or she feels he or she must binge.

Something inside the person is making him or her do it, and the person has no choice about it. The person almost is not doing it himself or herself because there is something inside the person making him or her do it. An eating disorder is very like an addiction because people get totally preoccupied by it. It progresses, so it gets worse. It has many negative consequences, in the same way that an addiction does.

However, where it differs is in terms of recovery. When one talks about addiction, one talks about the disease model of addiction, so once an alcoholic, always a recovering alcoholic. That person will never be able to drink again. It is different with an eating disorder. Full recovery is possible. It is where the person gets to a point in his or her life where his or her eating behaviours do not function in the same way for him or her, where he or she can feel sad and be sad and it is not that the person has to go for a run or where the person can be angry and it does not feel like he or she is going to have a panic attack. That is how one understands it.