Last week, the Boston Globe ran an article about diabulimia, a practice in which individuals with diabetes skip or underdose their insulin in a misguided attempt to stay thin.
The article cited in the work of psychologist Ann Goebel-Fabbri, at the Joslin Diabetes center in Boston. She published a shocking study last year showing that diabulimia tripled the risk of death from diabetes or its complications. Those who restricted their insulin died on average 13 years younger -- at 45, compared to 58.
This one’s a no-brainer. Diabulimia is dangerous. Don’t even start messing with it.
Medically speaking, diabulimia deprives the body of insulin. Without it, cells cannot metabolize sugar. Instead, they flush it out through nearly constant urination. Diabulimia, therefore, is akin to bulimia nervosa, except that it is sugar, not food, that's being purged from the cells -- and body.
While "sugar out" means "calories out," diabulimia can also lead to "lights out."
To bring home the message, my web team and I created an Internet PSA about diabulimia. The graphics illustrate the reality: when you practice diabulimia, you stare death in the mirror.
I could stop there, with a dismissive, “well, diabulimia, however tragic, is rare.” And as someone who has struggled with an eating disorder, I could say, “well least, I haven’t done that.”
But upon reflection, I realize that by having engaged in anorexia, I, too, flirted with mortality. Just at a slower pace than my diabulimic sisters. Starving while overexercising for decades certainly took its toll on my body. I have no idea if I have cut my life short in my sorry pursuit of thinness.
I do know that if I click my tongue at “desperate people who do desperate acts for thinness,” or believe that those who practice diabulimia should pay the price for their own demise, I’ve lost the sight of the truth.
Desperation for thinness is a spectrum, with life-threatening diabulimia on the severe end and simple longings to be skinny at the opposite. I sit somewhere on that spectrum. And every day I work hard to move toward the life-affirming pole.
How about you? Where do you fall? How far have you gone for want of thinness? And what are you willing to give up in order to head in the other direction—toward healing?