Drunkorexia: This Season’s Eating Disorder

by Gamal Hennessy

New York is already a haven for models and its exclusive parties. Fashion week gives both of them center stage. Some promoters and clubs make a point of inviting women to come and drink for free, knowing that these ladies will draw the type of man who will spend $400 on a bottle of Gray Goose. When you take women struggling with their weight trying to stay in this world and combine it with alcohol abuse, you get two disorders for the price of one.

Drunkorexia is not a medical term. The word is a combination of drunk and anorexia. It is supposed to describe a person who has a more traditional eating disorder like bulimia or anorexia and uses alcohol to either reduce their body image stress and/or as their major source of calories. Like most eating disorders, it hits women more than men. Unlike other eating disorders there isn’t an established treatment program available because the condition is seen as a fairly new phenomenon. It does have its poster children though. You might know them by their first names…Lindsay…Paris…Britney…

Whether drunkorexia is a by product of cultural pressure and the publicity that Lindsay and Paris get every time they wind up with their head in a toilet is a matter for social scientists. We know that liquor is poison. It is soothing and refreshing and delicious poison, but like fire, it is dangerous if not handled correctly. Drinking without eating isn’t the right way to play the game. Responsible indulgence is the key. The classic phrase is ‘eat, drink and be merry’. If you skip a step, you run the risk of sitting next to Lindsay in rehab…and that is not a good thing.

Source: Sarah Kershaw: The New York Times