>In terms of nutrition, it's a commom mistake to cross-reference
>mothers in extreme environmental crisis, and those with eating
>disorders. However, the cross-reference is of extrememly limited
>use.
>
>Mothers who are emergency situations, even in sustained deprivation,
>have usually had perfectly adequate and healthy diets prior to the
>emergency, and most go into the emergency with body fat and a desire
>to eat everything they get their hands on. They fight for every
>calorie, and will digest anything with protein and fats, such as
>insects and raw eggs, in order to provide themselves, and their
>babies, with whatever nutrition they find. The depravation is
>usually short lived in the sense that they will fight out of it as
>soon as they possibly can. Further, in most cultures, the pregnant
>and breastfeeding women will get first shares of whatever can be
>found.
Morgan, while you make some interesting points, I think you have
misunderstood what I was saying. I wasn't saying that women who have
eating disorders are *the same* nutritionally as women in an
emergency food situation, though I would think they have some common
features with women in longer-term deprived circumstances. I was
saying that the biological evidence that an eating disorder of
itself would affect the adequacy of the breast milk is scant - though
if there is any research that isolates this aspect from the
behavioural aspects, then it would make an interesting study.
I wonder, too, if the fact that the mother with the eating disorder
has achieved conception brings her into a category above the very
worst affected.
Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
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