The Psychology of Anorexia
 
    

Raw Food Diet
Anorexia
Back Pain
Genetics
Heart
Cancer
Ivy
Osteoporosis
Exercise
Chronic Fatigue
Vegetarianism

Gary Novak

 		          

There is clearly a biochemical regulation element to eating disorders, and psychological conditioning follows the biochemistry. In general, experts don't seem to grasp the biochemistry.

Anorexia is an example of chemistry and psychology getting scrambled, and the treatments generally don't work.

My approach to life is to look for elements of problems which other persons are missing. In all complex problems, I see important factors which are being overlooked. Eating disorders involve a complex interaction between biology and mental activity. My purpose here is to adjust the focus on that interaction.

First, I'm not an atheist. The mind is obviously part of the spirit. But I'm not a fundamentalist either. I'm an evolution biologist. Biology is a study of a billion year process. That process cannot be condensed into a short amount of time. To shrink it to six thousand years, as fundamentalists do, is like saying General Motors produces an automobile in six seconds. Maybe God can do supernatural things in a flash; and maybe he could create all of biology in a flash; but he sure is trying hard to get people to assume he created complex, cellular biology in a billion years; so why defy him.

When spiritual beings enter a body, they not only control the body, but the body controls them, and it has a significant influence over minds. Anorexics need to realize that biology has some major effects on the mind. Sleep is an example. It's a Biochemically controlled process. So is the desire to eat or not to eat.

There seems to be a natural tendency to assume everything in the mind is rationally controlled. Not so. Anorexics seem to assume they make a rational decision not to eat. They need to know that their condition is not a product of their decision making process but a result of biochemical control over the mind.

So my purpose here is to point out the interaction between biology and the mind. I say "point out" rather than clarify, because this would be too complex of a subject to review, even if science had elucidated the subject, and it has barely established the most basic principles.

In coping with human problems there are two major facts of psychology which are not generally considered. They are:

  1. Every decision made is influence by subconscious and external forces.
  2. Subconscious forces can only be controlled through an appropriate set of experiences.
Persons who produce irrational behavior will usually try to justify it by saying that it is what they want to do for some reason. They fail to recognize that they would not be choosing their irrationality if there were not subconscious forces causing it.

Anorexics try to explain their behavior, because, like everyone else, they do not understand the subconscious forces which control them. It is common to assume that eating disorders are reactions to other problems. But why not some other outlet for those problems? The answer is because the subconscious mind controls the result.

There is another factor which interacts with the developed reactions. Nature has a strong influence over whether a person wants to eat or not.

The brain evolves reactions which influence, in very complex ways, natural processes such as eating. If it didn't, there would be a lot more anorexics starving to death.

What is hunger? It is natures attempt to control eating. But the brain would not simply make people eat more, because they would over eat, and they would not get other things done.

So the brain also creates reactions which cause a person to not eat. Those reactions are caused by chemistry, such as being full of food. But the reactions should also be controlled by perceptions and activities, so a person is not distracted by eating when he should be doing something else. It seems observable that people are less interested in eating when they are busy doing other things.

In other words, there is a complex psychology which determines whether people eat or don't eat. It means anorexics are influenced improperly by the psychological forces. The answer to controlling the psychological forces is to go through a corrective set of experiences. This procedure is sometimes used with success for agoraphobia and other such disorders.

The corrective experience for anorexics should idealize eating and nutrition. A big problem here is that society cannot come close to agreement on what ideal nutrition should be, and eating has a lot to do with subjectivity and values.

Some common sense science needs to be applied to this subject. It is apparent that erroneous nutritional concepts seriously aggravate the problem of anorexia, and nutrition authorities are a large part of the problem. They tend to promote overly adulterated, processed and commercialized food which confuses the concept of quality in nutrition.

There is one fact above all others that determines quality of nutrition. It is that natural raw food is the standard of quality that nature developed over a billion years of evolution. No processing or alteration is an improvement, and usually it is an extreme degradation of quality by nature's criteria.

Anyone who tries to promote a raw food diet is met with a wall of opposition. It largely stems from culture, because a raw food diet just about wipes out all developed culture and values on eating. But culture and values do not change the science of the subject.

Along with the opposition to a raw food diet is of course a rationale. There are supposedly nutritional reasons why a raw food diet is unacceptable. One line is that raw food is not as digestible. There is no credible scientific logic to indicate that cooking or processing improves the digestibility of food.

But supposedly there are anti-digestive factors in raw food. There is no scientifically objective way to define anti-digestive. It is true that different types of raw food digest differently and should not be mixed. Usually, raw fruit should not be eaten with, or shortly after, raw vegetables.

By contrast, cooking reduces all food down to the same digestion process which allows all types of food to be mixed. If that result is desirable, it is not a biological improvement. To say that it is is to say that a billion years of evolution messed up nutrition, and cooking solves the problem.

The logic of biology indicates that correcting the psychology of eating should involve eating an optimum diet by nature's criteria, which of course means raw food.

Having decades of experience with raw food and vegetarian diets, I suggest that anorexics should try raw food as a possible solution to their problem. Have her or him eat the following: First a few chunks of peeled apple of a type which is not real sour. If organic grapes are available, eat several grapes (grapes can be too high in pesticide when not organic). Other optional types of fruit are mango, pear, peach, nectarine and plum. Organic is preferable. A small amount of toasted wheat germ should follow fruit for protein. (Raw wheat germ oxidizes becoming rancid.) Later, raw nuts and seeds supply protein.

At this point, the person will be hungry and devouring whatever is available, because raw food makes a person hungry. She or he may infact demand rolls or ice cream in an attempt to get enough energy which will "stick to the ribs." Chain them down if necessary to prevent such deviations.

After subject is accustomed to eating fruit and somewhat rejuvenated, start on the following vegetables: First, well ripened tomatoes. Then celery, leaf lettuce, raw potato and lentil sprouts 36 hours old.

Sprouts can be stored in a refrigerator for a few days if well drained and rinsed often while growing. For good germination, get sprout seeds at a health food store.

Another good raw food is frozen green peas which are thawed in water.

It is preferable for raw vegetables to be grown domestically for safety.

A raw food diet is difficult for anyone to maintain very long. The obstacles are not only the unavailability of good quality and variety of raw food, but a person has to eat more often, which interferes with culture and other activities.

If persons with eating disorders use a raw food diet to correct the psychology of food and then return to a cooked food diet, they could relapse, just as someone trying to quit smoking or drinking. If they go through the cycle several times, returning to a raw food diet as a corrective measure, they will gradually learn more about nutrition and probably become "normal" (read fat and diseased) eventually.

Some persons say eating disorders are not about food but something else. That's nihilism. All problems have complex interacting factors. The existence of some factors does not diminish the significance of others. Denying some factors because of others is an attempt to evade elements of the problem. There seems to be a culture of nihilism surrounding eating disorders, and it is probably a major contributing factor.

Phenotypic Variation and Eating Disorders