PETALING JAYA: There was a constant voice echoing in her head, making Siti (not her real name) ‘think’ she was fat as she would stand in front of the mirror every hour to see if she had gained any weight.
Siti from Kuala Lumpur was 17 when she first fell into anorexia nervosa and bulimia while not knowing anything about the eating disorders.
For the next three years, her weight gradually went down from a healthy 58kg to looking skeletal at 28kg.
“I went to visit our relatives in Canada in 1992, and people were very conscious about their weight there. It took one person to make a comment that I was chubby and it stuck in my head.
“Someone there said they would (voluntarily) vomit after eating, so this is how I picked up the disorder. I started feeling fat and developed the habit of looking at myself in the mirror as well as weighing myself constantly.
“Whenever I felt I had eaten too much, I would feel uneasy and want to take it out. Gradually, I reduced my food intake and I counted the calories of the food which I ate while always exercising,” she said.
Her daily meals consisted of just coffee with maybe a bun or a digestive biscuit, which she would vomit out eventually.
Now aged 50, the bank employee also recalled bingeing on food after everyone went to sleep, only to vomit it all out.
As a consequence of her disorder, she became bone thin, did not get her period and had difficulty defecating.
“People used to stare at me whenever I was out. My last weight was 28kg before I was admitted to hospital after a doctor finally diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa and bulimia.
“I was hospitalised for a month whereby they pumped nutrients, including fat, back into my system. As part of the treatment, my parents were not allowed to visit me; only my siblings came.
“So, my treatment was for my physical and psychological conditions. Once I hit 40kg, I was allowed to go home, but the recovery took a couple of years as I was still weight and food conscious,” she said, adding that her teeth also became rotten and her digestive system somewhat disrupted.
When asked about what advice she would give others who are suffering from the disorder, Siti said accepting that they have the condition is the first step, subsequently seeking for help as anorexia can even kill a person.
For Zainab (not her real name), she was completely blindsided by her 16-year-old son Ahmad’s (not his real name) anorexia and bulimia conditions.
The mother of four from Ampang said her son’s eating disorder began at age of 13 after his friends in school wanted to lose weight.
She said friends in school were teasing him about being chubby and fat as well as scaring him into believing his physical condition will not allow him to have children.
“He started off by just cutting out sweet drinks, nothing extreme as he was still eating normal, but we started to see some difference.
“Eventually with his eating habits changing, he managed to shed off his weight over the course of three years. But as soon as he entered Form 4, he started becoming skeletal, you can see his bones.“When I questioned him, he would shut it down and even hide his thin physical structure. To top it off, he would get really angry if you started questioning him,” she said.
Zainab said this led her to start being suspicious of her son, who would pretend to eat with the family but then throw it in the bin, and vomit the food out in the toilet.
She also said the family did not know what to make of his condition but thankfully, someone who had gone through the same condition spotted her son and told them to seek help for anorexia nervosa.
She took him to Hospital Tunku Azizah in Kuala Lumpur, whereby her son got the treatment he desperately needed.
“After he finished the treatment, we monitored his food and his dad followed him to the toilet to ensure he didn’t vomit his food out,” she said.
As a mother, Zainab felt helpless about her son’s condition but she is grateful for being able to detect his eating disorder.
Although her son was able to survive and get the necessary help after some time, not everyone is as lucky.
As such, Zainab hopes that adolescents who want to lose weight would opt for exercise and a balanced diet instead of falling into life-threatening disorders.
In 2022, a study titled “Estimated prevalence of eating disorders in Malaysia based on a diagnostic screen” published by the American National Library of Medicine highlights the concern that over 50% of Malaysians reported symptoms of eating disorders (EDs).
This was the first study to estimate the prevalence of EDs using a diagnostic screen in a population-based sample of Malaysians that indicates the need to invest more resources in understanding and managing eating pathology in Malaysia.
