Christmas 'is a tough time'

By Jane Elliott
BBC News Health Reporter

Brian's weight just before being admitted to hospital

Brian Kane dreads Christmas Day. He starts to worry about it early in the year and by the time the big day arrives he is really nervous.

For the last seven years Brian has been an anorexic.

He knows he will be expected to eat more than usual on Christmas Day. Brian eats only an orange with black coffee in the days leading up to Christmas, to ensure he puts no weight on.

But he says the constant offering of food, sweets and biscuits makes for a very miserable Christmas.

Hospitalised

Three years ago, Brian, 42, from Birmingham, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital when his weight plummeted to just 6st 7lbs (41.2kg) - almost half the normal weight for a 6ft 1in (1.85m) tall man like himself.

He spent seven months in the unit and was discharged weighing 9st 7lbs (60kgs).

I always see that fat grinning little school boy looking at me Brian Kane

Now he weighs 8st (50.8 kg) and is monitored monthly.

He says the Christmas period is one of the bleakest for people like himself with eating disorders.

"It is very hard. Everyone else is in the mood to over-eat. I just have to manage day-by-day. I just can't wait for Christmas to be over.

"In the days leading up to Christmas I will eat an orange and a coffee and I will have that again in the days following Christmas.

"I just can't wait for it to get finished. It frightens me and I worry about it all year. I worry about whether people have brought me cakes or chocolates. Now I tell them to buy me aftershave or socks."

Brian said he cannot eat in front of anyone but his family or his boyfriend, and that this severely restricts their socialising.

"I try to keep up with what my partner eats. He does understand - we have been together for 16 years now. But it is very hard.

"Even though I am not in hospital any more I am still classed as an anorexic. Eating will never be easy.

Weight

"I was a fat child, a chubby teenager. And, although I lost weight, when I see myself I always see that fat grinning little school boy looking at me.

"If people say to me that I look gaunt then it gives me a real boost, because if they say I look well then I will equate it with being fat.

"I am making it day-by-day and my partner understands me, because he has been with me before and during the illness. He just says 'eat what you can'.

"But the anorexia has affected me and I can't work now, I have damaged my heart tissue and I have osteoporosis."

Brian at a healthy weight

Steve Bloomfield of the Eating Disorders Association said that cases like Brian's were sadly not unusual, and that many of their members found the Christmas weeks some of the hardest of the year.

He said that this was why they were opening over much of the Christmas period this year.

"It is a very difficult time of year for anyone affected by an eating disorder. It is a time when relationships with close family can become out of hand when somebody makes an unguarded or thoughtless comment.

"For a few people, it may be the first time a relative learns that one of their family has an eating disorder."

He said that anorexics, bulimics and binge eaters would all find the Christmas tradition of indulging in food a very difficult one to manage.

"People with anorexia who find it very difficult at a time of feasting to cope with that, and at the same time people with bulimia and binge eating find it difficult not to binge."

Plan

Dr Jill Welbourne, retired eating disorders specialist, agreed that Christmas was one of the most difficult hurdles.

"It is an absolutely ghastly time. They tend to have a thing about needing to have everything controlled and this is not controlled and food is in your face the whole time.

"Christmas as a therapist was the worst time of the year. One Christmas I ended up sectioning three people who could not cope."

She added: "We are expected to eat more over Christmas. And quite honestly my heart bleeds over this period for people with eating disorders."

She said relatives and friends could help by planning the Christmas food menu with the person with the eating disorder.

Telling them what will be available and allowing them to decide in advance how they are going to manage. She said it was also helpful to ensure they had some time out from the festivities.

"With those case who are recovering or moderate I always say to them when the mince pies come round just take one the first time they are offered and then when they come round again you can always say 'no thanks I have had one'."

She said that even if the person didn't end up eating their mince pie it ensured they did not become the centre of attention.

For the first time, the Eating Disorders Association is opening its help lines over the Christmas period.

The Adult Helpline can be reached on 0845 634 1414. The Youthline, for under-18s, is on 0845 634 7650.