Dave Chawner suffers from anorexia. Photo / YouTube
Dave Chawner suffers from anorexia. Photo / YouTube
In 2014 I wrote a stand-up comedy show about anorexia. I thought I was ready to talk about it openly. I was wrong.
It's one thing to tell a friend or family member that you've had an eating disorder, but it's another entirely to tell the general public. I wanted to, as it's a huge problem. It's affected people like Kelly Clarkson, Lily Allen, Victoria Beckham. It's a huge problem – it's responsible for a lot of God-awful music.
Don't get me wrong, most people were supportive and encouraging. The feedback, comments and stories were overwhelmingly lovely. However, as soon as I'd disclosed my history of anorexia, their gaze would shift downwards, their eyes would narrow. Eventually, they'd tentatively say, "but you don't look anorexic."
My aim here isn't to vilify those people or dictate what people can and can't say. Don't worry, I'm not a member of the 'Language Police' stepping down from my self-righteous pedestal to your level. My objective is simply to question, what does an anorexic look like?
If parts of the media are to be believed, it's an emaciated, white, middle-class teenager sitting on a tiled floor hugging her knees with her head bowed in between her legs. However, as with so many things in life, the tabloid truth and the actual truth are miles apart.
You might think all anorexics are 'skinny'. However, eating disorders are a mental problem, not a physical one. What's happening on the inside isn't always reflected on the outside. You can't judge someone's mental health from their physical appearance. Numbers don't tell the full story – BMI, weight and waistlines can be an indicator, not an explanation.
Let me give you an example: you don't have to drink a certain number of units of alcohol a day in order to 'qualify' as an alcoholic. It's the same with eating disorders; the line between 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' can be tricky to define. However, one thing is for certain: that line cannot be measured using bathroom scales.
Perhaps they meant I didn't look anorexic because I was male. Typically, eating disorders are seen as a female problem, which is odd considering the first ever recorded case of anorexia (in the 1600's) was a man. In fact, the number of adult men being admitted to hospital with an eating disorder has risen by 70pc over the past six years. Research suggests that anywhere between 10 – 25pc of anorexics are male, but that's going up all the time.
Maybe they meant that I didn't look sorry for myself. If you Google 'anorexia' you're never too far from the classic 'head clutcher' picture that has become synonymous with all mental illness. But the truth is, I enjoyed it. I'm not glamourising eating disorders at all, I'm just trying to be candid. I think it's narrow-sighted to approach any topic from exclusively one angle.
For me, anorexia was a coping mechanism. It was a diseased one, like self-harm or substance abuse, but it was something that I relied on. Over time it developed as a subliminal response to my situation. When I was at school I had exams, coursework and all the stresses most teenagers have. While most of my peers seemed to cope with it, I couldn't.
Being able to focus on exercising and weighing myself was an addiction, an obsession. It was something I was in charge of and could distract me from everything that seemed so overwhelming. Anorexia became my way of managing situations, emotions and anything that I felt I couldn't cope with. It gave me a distorted sense of control.
I was one of the lucky ones. I was given two and half years of therapy, which involved healthier ways to deal with life's detritus. One of the things that became more and more apparent was that the weight, food and calories weren't really the problem. In fact, they were just the signs that something might not be right underneath.
If I'm honest, in a way I miss the anorexia now. It was my way of coping and one I had for years. I'm not going to spin all of that 'you-have-to-go-through-the-rain-to-reach-the-rainbow' crap because that stuff grates on me; it's disingenuous. However, I'm trying to build up healthier longer-term ways of coping. I'm not completely 'there' yet but I'm working towards it. And part of that is trying to learn from others and pass on what I've learnt to others.
I don't think that there is an anorexic 'look'. In many ways, it's unfortunate. If doctors could diagnose people just by looking at them it would save a lot of cash. Eating disorders cost the government $28 billion every single year. That's because it is a big problem – 6.4 per cent of adults display signs of an eating disorder. Anorexia itself has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder.
So, eating disorders are not like Donald Trump – they don't discriminate based on gender, race and background. Anyone can develop anorexia, from any background, at any time.
