Anorexia and Autism

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I got really emotional making this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU985OevQmg[/youtube]

Some of those pics are really bad, those girls were so disgustingly skinny :/

I have to admit an eating disorder was what I went to psychiatrists for originally, aspergers came up during that time for me.

Good video, well done

Thanks. You know, I am hoping that by watching my video, people witll realize they need to diagnose the ASD first as a preventative step to the anorexia ever developing later. I'd like to see doctors diagnose far younger girls so they can get treatment, support and interventions to help them break out of rigid patterns somewhat before they are applied dangerosly to food.

Very powerful video!

Are you planning to show it at any conventions, etc.? I think people really do need to be educated about autism in women. There´s something vastly wrong with this 10-1 AS diagnosis- (10 boys get diagnosed to every one girl).

I'm glad you made this. I suffered from anorexia for years, had to be hospitalized. And it was definitely part of my ASD.

I've never had that problem, as I love my food, too much but I still like the video.

If there had been an "awareness" regarding the possibility of a loose link between autism and anorexia in some girls who presented with eating disorders (and other repetitive behaviours and ASD traits) way back in the late 1970's and 1980's, I may have had a VERY different early and mid adulthood.

Eating disorders - in my case, and I do not believe it is the case with all- were undoubtedly a "marker" for more all pervasive ASD issues in my life. BUt back then,. nobody understood and nobody seemed to much care.
I was simply spat out into adult life - and while I could paint like a demon, write and had all sorts of amazing skills as an ASD person, I could not go into bank and look at a teller and open a bank account and I could not really get out of the house much or mix with people.

That video sure fit me to a T. I used food for control and cared about my image I tried to control how I look by using food. My mom said it had to do with me not being able to control my environment so I used food instead because it was something I can have control over. That was when she told me I have an eating disorder. I still feel fat at times and refuse to eat anything and I eat very light. One of the reasons why I don't eat out or have big meals or why I don't always have mac n cheese for dinner. I don't eat much anymore because I am not working so I don't need much food.

I'm glad to see someone drawing attention to this. I was encouraged and supported by a Psychiatrist specialising in eating disorders to follow-up with getting my AS diagnoses. At the time my consultant psych was only interested in my Anorexia (which was at a bad stage at the time), quite unsupportive and dismissive about my suggestions that I was on the spectrum.

One thing I find annoying about campaigns over anorexia is that the media influence is exaggerated. I see this as convenient scapegoating. You got it right-on the mark with control and perfectionism being a huge issue for most people. I can't speak for everyone of course, but control, autonomy and perfectionism are at the top of the list. The media (fashion, movie stars etc) never had an effect on me, and most people I've spoken to with EDs have said similar. If anything, it's a bit insulting as it serves to strengthen the stereotype about all Anorexics (or Bulimics) being shallow and superficial teenage girls.

Oh, and the model at 0.44 is a photoshop job.
Not nit-picking! Apart from that it's a good video.

I don't blame the media for anorexia at all. if anything, the media reflects our society more than it influences it. I do think that people on the spectrum are more vulnerable and impressionable to such things though.

Thanks also for the compliments

Thank you for posting this. I may or may not have had a spectrum disorder (I'm here mainly for my son), but definitely had anorexia as a teen and didn't know about the link until recently. I hope you are able to raise awareness, and at the very least, that the psychiatric community becomes better able to identify and help girls at risk. And I agree about the media. I was homeschooled, grew up in a TV-free household, and was not allowed to buy fashion magazines, and yet I still wound up with an ED. It was far more about rituals and self-negation than it was about looking hot.

This is an interesting topic. Were you commissioned to produce the video for an event? I think the whole thing of anorexia and ASDs is so important andd this makes the big points very well. It's a big problem that ASDs are underdiagnosed in girls and you make the connection and show how it can lead to girls being very ill or dying.

I thought the video would be more powerful with different images. Let me explain:

I found these images uncomfortable because I felt they glamorise emaciation. I couldn't tell which ones were photoshopped to make the models look more alarming. I wondered who are the girls in the pictures and what are their stories.

I think that girls with anorexia would use these images as inspiration. I think that because I would have done so.

I think it is well-established that the media does have a very big influence. I don't think girls should be offended by that idea. For me as a fourteen-year-old all the information that I could get about body image and weight was extremely important in making my illness much worse. If I had had access to a bank of images realistically depicting women with their heights and weights, and also information about how starvation damages health, then I would not have starved myself.

In practice the information I had was from other girls in my school class, and I did not realise that they were saying they weighed whatever they weighed 6 months or a year earlier. The only other source of information I had was magazines, I would look at the pictures of models and gymnasts and dancers and thought I should weigh the same as them. Because I seemed so much heavier I thought I must have reverse body dysmorphia and that I actually must look fatter than I thought I did. I was not a shallow girl at all, I was very lonely and desperately needed support to get through some tough times. I thought that if I could be like other girls then I would be able to make friends with them.

I realised what I was doing was dangerous, so I looked at books about anorexia and images of emaciated girls. It seemed to me that very emaciated girls could live a long time, and that it was not until their weight fell below 5 and a half stone that they became dangerously ill, even for girls who were considerably taller than me ( I was 5 foot 3).

I went down a shoe size and 2 wrist watch sizes because I lost so much bone mass. I spent 6 months in hospital, because I was dangerously ill, my heart rate was less than 40bpm. At no point was I anywhere near as emaciated as those girls in those pictures - my lowest weight was 6 and a half stone.

I wished that someone could depict the loneliness and the sense of being on the outside all the time. I never saw any images that portrayed that.

Whitetiger, I think your video is amazing. Very moving and straight th the point. You are clearly very talented at making videos of this sort.

I had anorexic tendencies as a teenager and I always did it in a sterotypically Aspie way - writing down exactly what I was supposed to eat, counting calories extremely accurately and so forth. It makes perfect sense to me that there would be a connection.

I think that is wonderful.
I think a lot of the time we feel our apperance needs to make up for our aspergers.

I made me quite upset, it reminded me of Starbuline, who I could have helped, but didn't, and look at what happened to her.