S/O bnei Brak only place boys anorexia larger than girls

amf

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 3:27 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I wonder if anyone else heard about this. Rabanit Yemima Mizrachi is very reliable

Where did she come from? What kind of credentials does she have? I don't even know of her Jewish/hashkafic credentials, and I definitely don't know any psychological ones she has.
Without actual evidence, its not fair to say these kinds of things about an entire group.

FranticFrummie

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 3:29 pm

It may have something to do with the intense "learning culture", but I doubt Bnei Brak has cornered the market on that.

Think about the pressure put on students in China and Japan. Both countries have a much higher rate of ED than Western countries. They also have a higher suicide rate when test grades come in.

Any place that insists that everyone be the "top boy", or else they will live in shame, where the parents as well as the school never stop the pressure, and there is no safe haven for feelings, that is a recipe for internal control issues. Restricting food is one of the only things you can do when you feel powerless and caught up in a system that has your whole life mapped out for you.

This is why I always told DD "Grades do not show you what you are worth, they only show you where you are holding. If you need help, then that's how you know what to work on. It doesn't make you smart or dumb, good or bad." (She graduated at the top of her class.)

FranticFrummie

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 3:34 pm

amother [ Leaf ] wrote:

This is absolute BS. I work in the field of eating disorders and am quite up to date with the research for eating disorders.

Thank you for explaining that so clearly. I think a lot of us who are not in the field still have outdated ideas about this, because ED seems so mysterious and hard to treat. A lot of doctors still cling to the old ideas as well. It definitely seems to have multiple triggers that can vary from person to person.

Bless you for all the work you do!

amother

Pearl

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 4:19 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

That is a crazy generalization. Not always.

I didn't say always, I didn't even say it was a causal relationship. Just that there is a link. You can Google the co morbidity between the two and see for yourself.
Plenty of eastern cultures such as Russia and Japan put an enormous amount of pressure into their youth but op said bnei brak seems to have the highest rate.

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 4:24 pm

amother [ Pearl ] wrote:

But as so many have already said, this seems unlikely to be true. This culture is not only in bneibrak.

Elfrida

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 5:47 pm

amf wrote:

Where did she come from? What kind of credentials does she have? I don't even know of her Jewish/hashkafic credentials, and I definitely don't know any psychological ones she has.

I believe she is actually a qualified lawyer. I don't think she has any psychological qualifications. Not that you need to be a psychologist to read studies and understand statistics.

amother

Leaf

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 7:09 pm

SG18 wrote:

She's very educated, I believe that she can understand research. I'd still like to see it, though. It's possible she was being hyperbolic to describe the pressure boys in Bnei Brak are under.

There are many very educated people in this world. But no one is educated on everything. That’s just not possible. Unless something has changed, I don’t think Rabbanit Mizrahi is an eating disorder expert. So unless she quoted a reliable research study, her education doesn’t really matter. Also, as an eating disorder professional, that study has a lot of holes and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the context of eating disorders.
Also, and this is nothing against Rabbanit Mizrahi herself, but Israel in general is very behind on almost every mental health condition, and eating disorders are not the exception. I know of exactly one (!) eating disorder professional in Israel whose training is on par with American/UK/Australian training for eating disorders, and it’s well known that Israel is highly lacking in up to date treatment (aka treatment that actually works) for eating disorders. Therefore, a study coming from an Israeli source is very doubtful.

Since I know there are people who know others struggling that are reading this, I want to say this: eating disorders are treatable. eating are curable. an eating disorder is not a chronic illness. There is treatment that works.

Also, if anyone wants to prove me wrong and give me names of therapists in Israel who are up to date in eating disorders, please let me know and I’d be happy to be wrong.

amother

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 8:03 pm

amother [ Leaf ] wrote:

It was a Shiur she gave few weeks or few month ago. I actually don’t remember if she quoted a research. Now I think she said she knows doctors / psychologist in bnei break that told her it’s the only place in the world that the number of boys with anorexia is bigger than for girls. It makes sense in a way because secular girls are pressured by boyfriends and mixed gender schools frum girls don’t have this pressure. Frum boys have a lot of pressure for learning in
Yeshiva they need to be the top boy to get the best girl and with money to support them.

amother

Caramel

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 8:12 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I’ve never heard a bigger bunch of baloney. The two anorexic girls in my school were the most yeshivish.

mfb

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 9:39 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

This is why I always told DD "Grades do not show you what you are worth, they only show you where you are holding. If you need help, then that's how you know what to work on. It doesn't make you smart or dumb, good or bad." (She graduated at the top of her class.)

Sorry op off topic
But I love the way you worded this and I think I’m going to use these lines from now on

amother

Butterscotch

Tue, Feb 08 2022, 11:55 pm

I'm the amother who posted earlier that I had an eating disorder and my #1 factor was grossly overcontrolling mother (btw, there is a huge difference between strict and overcontrolling. You can be strict and NOT be overcontrolling).

Just wanted to add 2 things:

1. I was never s-xually abused.

2. Even though I had more academic pressure than average when my eating disorder started, I never got therapy or even treatment for my eating disorder (because if my mom found out, she would have controlled my food and weight too!), and I attribute the biggest reason I was able to stop to being that I was in college and academics gave me enough to focus on that my quest to be thin was less important to me, and when I stopped dieting I basically stopped binging. On the other hand, it could have been that being thin and "in control" became less important because I was no longer living with my mother.

Oldest

Wed, Feb 09 2022, 9:47 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

What BS!!!!! Are you telling me that frum girls don't have a pressure to look good and be skinny? Are you telling me that this pressure only comes from boyfriends and coed schools?? If you believe this then, as someone said earlier, I got a bridge to sell you.

Frum society is SO focused on external appearance. Yes, it should not be that way but that's a whole other topic. From when they are young girls are given the message that if they are not thin and perfect looking then they won't find a shidduch. Every ad in every frum publication is promoting the message that you must look thin and beautiful. Frum clothing stores only sell clothing for skinny people. Overwieght people are told that they have a problem. Heck, there was just a thread on here about someone not getting a job because of her weight!

So don't go telling me that frum people don't have this pressure to excel.

Honestly, reading your op, it came off as more of an attack on Bnei Brak and a segment of people rather than the awareness you think it was...

WitchKitty

Wed, Feb 09 2022, 9:56 am

Oldest wrote:

Frum society is SO focused on external appearance. Yes, it should not be that way but that's a whole other topic. From when they are young girls are given the message that if they are not thin and perfect looking then they won't find a shidduch. Every ad in every frum publication is promoting the message that you must look thin and beautiful. Frum clothing stores only sell clothing for skinny people. Overwieght people are told that they have a problem. Heck, there was just a thread on here about someone not getting a job because of her weight!

This IS actually less of a problem in Bnei Brak.
Lots of people care less about weight in general, and almost all ads don't have photos of women.

Bnei Brak is full of beautiful, overweight, well-dressed chassidish women- I don't know if the chassidish care less or what, but that's what I've noticed Very Happy

amother

Viola

Thu, Aug 11 2022, 1:32 am

amother [ Butterscotch ] wrote:

I had anorexia for a brief period of time as a young teen. Brief because I was in control for only about 6 months, then lost control and started to binge. I was unable to make myself vomit b"h so it didn't turn into proper Bulimia, but I would restrict food and then binge then repeat, so an eating disorder which is not exactly anorexia or bulimia.

Just wanted to say -- pressure to excel is definitely not the only factor. For me it was not even the biggest factor. The biggest factor for me was that my mother was horrifically overcontroling, and dieting was my outlet to control something and see results I liked. But yes, I can easily believe that many Bnei Brak boys feel sadly overcontrolled.

As a parent of a child with anorexia, your comment really stings. No Mother who is dealing with a child with AN should have to feel like this was her fault or that her child got an ED because she was controlling.
FYI more boys have eating disorders than you realize. Boys are just less likely to be labeled as Anorexic or even seem treatment for it bec it’s a “girls illness”.