Eating disorders plague young Japanese
TOKYO: Japan is one of the world's most style-conscious countries, but a growing number of young Japanese women shun fashion magazines and even avoid looking at themselves in the mirror. Far from being uninterested in their appearance, these girls are recovering from a life-threatening obsession with being fashionably slim. The incidence of eating disorders in Japan ballooned roughly 10-fold between 1980 and 1998, with a particularly dramatic increase over the last five years, according to a government-sponsored survey. One of the researchers involved, Doctor Gen Komaki of Japan's National Institute of Mental Health, has been treating such conditions for more than 20 years. Komaki predicts that eating disorders could become as big a problem in Japan as they are in the United States, where they affect an estimated one to 3.5 percent of the population. "Japan is 10 years behind the U.S. in all sorts of ways, both good and bad, but it is catching up," he told Reuters. The reasons for the increase in food-related disorders are hard to pin down, but one 19-year old anorexic, who declines to be identified, says she has little doubt about what triggered her illness. "I used to read magazines and I liked the clothes I saw," she says in an interview at the hospital she has been attending as an outpatient for several months. "But the clothes were only available in small sizes. When I tried them on in the shops they didn't fit, so I decided I wanted to lose weight," she adds. At 160 cm (five foot 3 inches) and 55 kilograms (121 pounds) before the illness struck, the unemployed former trainee chef was hardly overweight by normal standards. But with the iron self-discipline typical of anorexics, she kept cutting back her food intake until she weighed just over 39 kg (86 pounds) and lacked the energy to move. Only then was her mother able to persuade her to visit a hospital. "They put her on a drip straight away, but she didn't like it because she thought it would make her fat," the mother recalls. The mother is angry about the way fashion magazines glamourise thinness. "I think they're criminal," she says. "Children that age are so easily influenced and they believe everything they read, although some of it is lies. People will say they weigh 39 kg when they look more like 45." A spokeswoman for one of Japan's most popular women's magazines says the publication receives a large number of letters from women suffering from eating disorders. "But we are absolutely not encouraging anyone to eat an unhealthy diet... Rather than becoming thinner, we are just saying people can improve their figures and look healthier, mainly by exercising," she says. "On the other hand, it is true to say that some of this year's fashions, like low-slung jeans, only suit people who are thin. Even some of the models complain about it," she adds. Women in their mid to late teens are the most vulnerable to anorexia. But just as worrying is the number of cases of bulimia nervosa, which affects slightly older women. Sufferers feel compelled to binge and then purge their bodies by deliberately inducing vomiting or diarrhoea. According to Komaki, bulimia is growing rapidly, possibly because of increased societal pressure to be slim. "There is now a whole industry based around dieting," he points out. "Even people of normal weight are dieting." Komaki says 47 percent of Japanese women are now more than 10 percent under their ideal weight, and the proportion is increasing. "Obviously, not everyone who goes on a diet ends up with an eating disorder," Komaki says. "People with low self-esteem and high levels of anxiety use food to help them forget their problems." At the same time, Japanese eating habits are becoming more Americanised, and the country's vast number of 24-hour convenience stores make bingeing on sugary or fatty foods easier than ever before, he says. What all sufferers from eating disorders have in common is an obsession with their own weight and appearance, he notes. Anorexics have a distorted body image, thinking of themselves as fat even when they are painfully thin. But it is difficult to gauge the exact incidence of bulimia, as sufferers often retain a normal body weight and make efforts to hide their symptoms. That adds to the already thorny problem of how to prevent eating disorders. Komaki says most doctors agree education campaigns are unhelpful. "Everyone has their own set point in terms of weight and it is only when they start to be conscious of what they eat that problems emerge," he adds. (Reuters)
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