AND THE WINNER IS…
Posted on February 19, 2012 by Dr. Deah
“I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. I had no idea.”These are phrases often spoken after the fact, looking back with 20 /20 hindsight. These are the heart wrenching phrases, hand wringing phrases, and the verbal symptoms of a bad case of The Should Haves. Feb 26, 2012, is the first day of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. For those of us struggling with an eating disorder, or treating clients with an E.D. or who have a family member or close friend/colleague with an E.D. the truth is that EVERY week is Eating Disorders Awareness Week. (E.D.A.W.). In fact, EVERY DAY is E.D.A.D. and EVERY MINUTE is E.D.A.M. (Not to be confused with the cheese). But WE are not the intended audience for NEDAW. The purpose of declaring a week for awareness is to increase the awareness of those who may not be as intimate with the details, repercussions, and scope of this extremely debilitating disorder and to hopefully raise money along with awareness for treatment and proactive interventions. The theme this year is, Everybody knows Somebody, which tacitly implies that we may not know that we know somebody, so let’s learn more about E.D. so we can recognize that somebody in our lives and help them.
“I had no idea. I never expected this. You like me?”These are phrases often spoken after receiving an Oscar from The Academy. February 26, 2012, also happens to be the Academy Awards (A.A.) or as Bob Hope used to say,
"Welcome to the Academy Awards, or, as it's known at my house, Pass-over."
All self-deprecating Jewish Humor Jokes That I Totally Love aside, the irony that the Academy Awards show is being aired on the first day of NEDAW is not lost on me...the Mayor of Dr. Deah's Hollywood. While it may seem like old news by now, some of my readers may remember last year’s Tasty Morsels blog, Friendly Fire, which discussed Portia Di Rossi’s E. D. and the deleterious effects that the pressures of Hollywood have on an actor's body image.
More recently, those of us who watched the Grammy Awards (G.A.) will remember the derisive comments by Karl Lagerfeld about Adele's body even though the singer walked away with an armful of the coveted gramophone statues. More importantly, I hope we remember her fantastic response to Lagerfeld, chastising him for focusing on something that she didn’t consider a problem, and was irrelevant in re: to her music. It is difficult to ignore the fact that so much of the pre and post Grammy hoopla focuses more on the musician's body (especially the women) and their fashion choices than on their talents. Hearing performers like Adele and Kelly Clarkson reject the industry's paradigm is a relief and hopefully other talented performers will follow suit. Another beacon of hope that emerged during the Grammy frenzy, if you can call someone coming out as Bulimic a beacon of hope, was Lady Gaga's announcement that she struggled with an Eating Disorder in her teenage years and continues to struggle with body image issues. She is quoted in an article in Jezebel,"It (the purging) made my voice bad, so I had to stop," she said. "The acid on your vocal cords — it’s very bad. But for those of you who don't sing, you maybe don't have that excuse until it's too late. It's very dangerous." "Weight is still a struggle," she said. "Every video I’m in, every magazine cover, they stretch you. -- They make you perfect. It’s not real life ... I’m gonna say this about girls: The dieting wars have got to stop. Everyone just knock it off. Because at the end of the day, it’s affecting kids your age. And it’s making girls sick."Why didn’t they run that clip over and over and over on the red carpet??? And now with one week to go until the Big Cheese (no still not Edam) of award ceremonies hits our living rooms, I urge all of you to hold on to your Jan Wahl Hats because, “It’s gonna be a bumpy ride!” The Grammys were just an “amuse bouche” compared to the Main Course Super Size Portion of Insanity served up by the Academy Awards and the emphasis they place on form over film. It is time to steel ourselves and get ready for the onslaught of media mania that will sadly plant seeds of discontent in many a viewer about their own body as commentators dissect each star who walks the carpet under the search lights. But wait...let's do a fade out... Fade in...We find ourselves in Dr. Deah's Hollywood. A saner place where we can take a moment and capitalize on the perfect timing of the confluence of NEADW and The AA by introducing you to a film that fits the bill for raising the awareness of E.D.'s and satisfies the requirement of Good Cinema.
“I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. I had no idea.”These are phrases spoken frequently during the new documentary, Someday Melissa.
