mary-kate's eating disorder

[smiley21]

hope she is doing well

mary-kate

[ZTAngel]

I am at the picture they have of her. She looks so frail. I hope she gets better.

[Xylochick216]

I'd been thinking for awhile that she, if not both, looked like twigs. Wasn't sure if it was just their genes or if there was a problem. I'm hoping she can win her fight with her disorder

[DZHBrown]

I thought she had looked pretty sick for awhile. Both girls seem to be naturally thin (too thin, probably), but Mary-Kate started to look pretty extreme. Eating disorders are so prevalent and difficult to deal with. I hope she can beat it!

[sugar and spice]

I noticed how thin she was getting ages ago and was surprised that it took the media so long to notice.

[Kevin]

Well, now that one of them has slipped, they can become REAL cultural icons.

It's strange in America (and to some extent the rest of the English speaking world) that we pay so damned much attention when our celebrities have failures.

Would OJ Simpson be a household name if he hadn't killed those people?

(the above sentence is bait for someone to try and hijack the thread)

[swissmiss04]

I think it's sad. It's hard enough being put in a hospital for an eating disorder. It's exponentially more difficult when the entire freaking world knows about it. I hope the media leaves her the hell alone and lets her recover. The relapse rate for anorexia is pretty high. I hope she doesn't fall into that statistic.

[sugar and spice]

Also not to be too negative, but the way the media was covering this would be extremely unhealthy for both of the twins to deal with. I wouldn't be surprised if Ashley was dealing with eating issues of her own after the media coverage. All the tabloids were referring to her as if she were "the fat twin" when in reality she is also very slim -- there's probably only a 10-15 pound difference in their weights, if that. Many interviews have noted that the twins seem to eat the same amount. I wouldn't be surprised if Ashley also enters treatment sometime in the next year or so.

Also, the amount of coverage that will invariably go over her battle with eating disorders, her decision to hospitalize (the fact that she's 18 means she probably chose to become hospitalized rather than being forced into it, as is the case with many teenage girls with eating disorders), and all the rest means that the chance for a relapse is very high.

The whole situation is really interesting to me, as someone who has studied eating disorders informally for half my life, but as someone who's dealt with anorexia and other disorders on and off for five years, it's also really depressing. I think that her decision to get treatment, while commendable, is only the tip of the iceberg.