Anorexia and gyms

HealthyChanges2010

A lot of interesting responses.

Just to clarify, I did say that she appears to have anorexia - I'm not in a position to diagnose anyone. I can barely tell the difference between a cold and the flu!

Here's a thought, she could be dealing cancer or any other illness. At our fitness center we have a group for cancer survivors and many are very underweight having dealt with chemo and other treatments. They do come and have groups and workout in the facility, I sure hope noone would ever go up to one of those group members and ask if they are anorexic. That would be alittle ackward and quite inappropriate.

There can be many reasons ppl are underweight and still working out, some ppl have trouble keeping their weight up but still want to maintain good healthy with excercise. Some of us over eat/binge but don't over excercise/purge and at least I've never been approached at the gym and had anyone mention to me I'm overweight, so I doubt I'll be (Ok, I'm sure of it..lol) the one going up to someone asking if they might have over excercised or need to eat more.

Sometimes ppl decide heavy ppl are lazy and simply eat too much, sometimes that may be the case, but not always, many factors could be at play.

Sorta the flip side of the coin, same coin, reverse side.
Becca

asltiffm

Touchy subject. I can't imagine the gym being responsible in any way nor should they intervine. I was anorexic at one point in my life and I can tell you from experience that the sufferer is not in a healthy state of mind. In my case, it was an attempt to gain control of my life after a traumatic experience. If anyone confronted me about it I became instantly defensive and scared that I was going to be forced to eat. As a result, I'd be even more rigid in my diet. Usually, someone with anorexia will have a safe food that they allow themselves to eat. Mine was milk. After a confrontation, I would usually not allow myself any milk, which left me with only water and gum, until I felt safe again. So a confrontation can be kind of dangerous. Sadly, the sufferer has to make a conscious decision to change and that usually only comes from within, not from someone talking to them. My turning point was when after months of not eating, I had a small bowl of cereal. It was my favorite and my mom kept it in the house to intice me to eat. I felt so guilty about eating it that after 20 minutes of failed attempts to throw up, I finally downed some ipecac syrup. I swore I would never do that to myself again but a couple months later I gave in to food again and I found that bottle again. I knew then that there was something seriously wrong with me and I talked to my mom and she got me some help. Getting someone to see there is something wrong with them is not an easy thing to do.

HealthyChanges2010

Touchy subject. I can't imagine the gym being responsible in any way nor should they intervine. I was anorexic at one point in my life and I can tell you from experience that the sufferer is not in a healthy state of mind. In my case, it was an attempt to gain control of my life after a traumatic experience. If anyone confronted me about it I became instantly defensive and scared that I was going to be forced to eat. As a result, I'd be even more rigid in my diet. Usually, someone with anorexia will have a safe food that they allow themselves to eat. Mine was milk. After a confrontation, I would usually not allow myself any milk, which left me with only water and gum, until I felt safe again. So a confrontation can be kind of dangerous. Sadly, the sufferer has to make a conscious decision to change and that usually only comes from within, not from someone talking to them. My turning point was when after months of not eating, I had a small bowl of cereal. It was my favorite and my mom kept it in the house to intice me to eat. I felt so guilty about eating it that after 20 minutes of failed attempts to throw up, I finally downed some ipecac syrup. I swore I would never do that to myself again but a couple months later I gave in to food again and I found that bottle again. I knew then that there was something seriously wrong with me and I talked to my mom and she got me some help. Getting someone to see there is something wrong with them is not an easy thing to do.

Your post speaks volumes and I'm glad you shared it. Also I'm glad you're in a better spot in life now:drinker: :flowerforyou:

cambierlingua

Sorry, but I don't agree with most of you and this is why. An anorexic is a mentally ill person. Giving them a gym membership is like giving an already drunk person more alcohol which could kill them.

A gym has a moral and most likely a legal responsibility to not accept someone who is so mentally ill. Anorexia is a mental illness. They are starving themselves to death because mentally, they don't see themselves realistically or take realistic action to help themselves.

I think any gym accepting a membership from an anorexic is bad money and irresponsible. Plus, having an anorexic at a gym is terribly disturbing and bad business as it affects other members to have to watch her continually harming herself. If I were the parent of the anorexic, especially if I'd asked them not to accept her (or him) they would probably would have a good legal case against the gym,

ilovedeadlifts

Hi all. Not sure where to post this, but there is a woman at my gym who appears to be suffering from anorexia nervosa.

Anyway, my question is, do you think the gym bears any responsibility to this woman? In other words, is the gym enabling her, and should someone on staff have a conversation with her?

I don't know that they haven't and I'm not judging anyone - just curious to know what your opinion is.

no they don't owe her anything. she's an adult and should be more responsible for herself.
are we gonna start blaming stores for selling cigarettes to people who are addicted?
or get mad at gym owners who let steroid users workout, because we're encouraging their drug use?

peuglow

Hi all. Not sure where to post this, but there is a woman at my gym who appears to be suffering from anorexia nervosa.

Anyway, my question is, do you think the gym bears any responsibility to this woman? In other words, is the gym enabling her, and should someone on staff have a conversation with her?

I don't know that they haven't and I'm not judging anyone - just curious to know what your opinion is.

Should a fast food restaurant have any compassion for their obese patrons?

firstsip

Sorry, but I don't agree with most of you and this is why. An anorexic is a mentally ill person. Giving them a gym membership is like giving an already drunk person more alcohol which could kill them.

A gym has a moral and most likely a legal responsibility to not accept someone who is so mentally ill. Anorexia is a mental illness. They are starving themselves to death because mentally, they don't see themselves realistically or take realistic action to help themselves.

I think any gym accepting a membership from an anorexic is bad money and irresponsible. Plus, having an anorexic at a gym is terribly disturbing and bad business as it affects other members to have to watch her continually harming herself. If I were the parent of the anorexic, especially if I'd asked them not to accept her (or him) they would probably would have a good legal case against the gym,

But you can't just judge an anorexic from image.

It's a mental disorder. Just like you might not know someone is suffering with depression or anxiety, you can't really know if someone has an ED.

Bulimia purging often can constitute over exercising, but may not reflect in their weight as much, since calories are still always being ingested (and sometimes many from binges). How would you know they have an ED?

Similarly, someone may be incredibly thin, even gaunt--they could be suffering from hyperthyroidism, hell, even cancer, wasting disease, etc., but be advised to work out, strength train, etc. As someone else pointed out--as someone who battled anorexia for nearly a decade, I barely had energy to do crunches, let alone 2 hours of running. I think something more might be at play here (and let's not forget how many MFPers think the low end of a BMI is "too thin").

Do you want health screenings or even MENTAL health screenings before being admitted into a gym? That gets scarier than letting someone with an ED work in the gym. If there's no doctor present, no one can make the call.

RenewedRunner

<--- spent 5 years suffering from bulimia with an exercise addiction. Now a certified ED counselor

Disordered eating issues affect pretty much everyone. We have been trained to think food=reward or good times. We come together as a family at meals, we meet our friends for drinks and dinner, we treat ourselves with calorie splurges. Food in our culture of plenty has become a problem.

As for the exerciser, you don't know so don't assume. Like one poster said, she could have cancer, she could be sick, she could be recovering from something. Or she could have anoxeria (average statistic is 1 in 200 women). But if she does suffer from an ED, then what right is it of ours to say or do something? Forced treatment doesnt work. Why would the gym kick her out? No one knew about my disorder as I maintained what looked like the low end of healthy (110 and 5'5'). How would you ban those using the gym for what we term unhealthy reasons?