Fun With Neuroscience and Societal Analysis!

Permission. I think permission has a lot more to do with all this than any of us realize. For example:

This past week was the week before my period and, as always happens, it was the week of various cravings. Some people crave chocolate, some carbs, some salt, some crunch. I crave ice cream. Always. Without fail. Always at 10:00 or 11:00 pm, of course.

An anorexic with the munchies is a sad thing. And a recovering anorexic is even worse. It involves a lot of pacing around and wondering if you should eat something at 11 and feel the guilt or if you will purge or over-exercise or binge or if somehow it will all be ok.

Now, if I go to Wendy's and get a frosty by myself at 10:00 or 11:00 pm, I will feel horribly guilty about it. But let's say I call up a friend or my wonderful boyfriend, ask them if it's ok if I have some ice cream and if they go with me. Then it's somehow magically much more ok. One night this week I asked my boyfriend if ice cream was ok. That somehow made it better.

Once, I was at a family gathering and my aunt had made one of her famous blackberry pies, with fresh blackberries from the family farm. I love blackberry pie. I asked my mom if it was ok, and she said that of course it was. Suddenly, it was ok.

I read an article about a study they did once where they did brain scans of normal brains and anorexic brains. They showed the people pictures of various food items varying from apples to cheesecake and looked at the different responses they got from the different areas of the brain. Normal brains responded with the expected hunger, positive emotion, and even pleasure. Anorexic brains lit up in the areas that work with calculation, analysis, fear, and PERMISSION.

There was a documentary about an 8 year old anorexic. Interesting because the girl wasn't quite old enough to be able to explain how she felt and why she was doing what she was doing. It was anorexia at the most basic and primal level. And as soon as they gave her permission to eat, she ate.

As a general rule, society doesn't have permission to eat things like cheesecake, ice cream, and blackberry pie. Is something wrong here?

Maybe this is one of the societal factors that has an affect on anorexia.