J. Crew Size 000: Are We Shrinking? Or Is That Just The Goal?
If positive numbers no longer suffice to measure your diminutive waistline, then J. Crew has a solution for you. The popular clothing company recently announced that it added a new size to its repertoire—the 000, or extra-extra-extra small. Numerically, that’s a 30.5” bust and a 23” waist (which The Daily News points out is about the circumference of a basketball). The move immediately raised alarm, prompting responses from groups such as the National Eating Disorders Association, which issued a statement urging, “There is no such thing as a size 0 (or 000).” On Twitter, an outcry from...
Read MoreThe Habit Rut
Calling an eating disorder a “bad habit” would probably make the ED community wince. But Dr. Joanna Steinglass, a psychiatrist at the Columbia Center for Eating Disorders, says the habitual nature of EDs actually deserves a lot more attention. In an article published Monday in The Feed, Steinglass says new clinical research shows that eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa, have a lot to do with developing habits. In neuroscience-speak, these are behaviors that lead us to “[respond] to a specific cue even when the outcome of that response is no longer...
Read MoreTreatment Fatigue and What to Do About It
If you’ve ever felt that you’ve given every ounce of energy to treatment and can’t muster up any more, you’re not alone. It turns out that there’s such a thing as treatment fatigue, and it can become a sizable barrier to the recovery process. About five months into treatment, I began to feel weary. The feeling went deeper than merely being tired after months of effort. It was a soul-smothering kind of weariness that stopped me dead in my tracks and made both recovery and relapse seem impossibly far in either direction. Even more frustrating, this feeling took hold just when I thought I...
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I'm a writer, a mental health activist, and a 20-something in recovery from an eating disorder. This blog chronicles my journey through the middle ground toward full recovery.
