Are More Pregnant Women Suddenly Starving Themselves?

Miriam Axel-Lute — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:00:00 GMT

A blogger over at self-improvement site PeopleJam is warning us about a new buzzword, "pregorexia," and the supposed trend from which it stems—women suddenly trying to be like a couple of skinny celebs by staying thin during their pregnancies.

But the original article reporting on the topic in the Times of London paints a somewhat different picture—one of a world in which lots of women have eating disorders, and, surprise, surprise, they don't just disappear during pregnancy, though sometimes pregnancy does make some that have been in remission return. (Since eating disorders are as much about control as appearance, I can see that the feeling of being out of control that pregnancy can bring would be a risk factor.)

The article paints a depressing picture of insufficient care and doctors not asking about, or noticing, symptoms of unhealthy eating. But it doesn't make the case that there's actually any new upswing in cases, and in fact specifically notes that there is no data to show that. Perhaps there is just an upswing in awareness, which is often mistaken for an increase in the thing itself.

More awareness of eating disorders in general is good, and I suppose I can tolerate "pregorexia," a creepily cutesy term for a non-cutesy thing, if it helps with that, but my gut feeling is it would make more sense to use the words we have and not treat eating disorders in pregnancy as some new, separate thing that those crazy knocked up ladies are getting into.

There does seem to already be a disturbing willingness to assume that healthy pregnancy weight gain is going to screw with all of our delicate self esteems, even if we have no eating disorders. Take lines like this one from BabyCenter—"It's normal to feel anxious and even depressed as the numbers on the scale edge up" (Depressed? Just from that? If that's true, we're in sad shape) or the popular, defensive "I'm not fat, I'm knocked up" T-shirt.

So there's weirdness out there, but I'm still suspicious of making it a celebrity supermodel problem. There are an awful lot of normally protruding pregnant bellies in evidence on famous people. Enough that even under-a-pop-culture-rock me has seen the pictures.

On the other hand, from what I've heard from midwives and other mothers, fears about gestational diabetes (a real problem with extreme weight gain) and "babies too big for a natural birth" (which is almost always bunk) seem to lead an awful lot of nurses and doctors to cluck their tongues warningly over even slightly high weight gain. That won't create an eating disorder out of thin air, but it sure can sow doubt and paranoia. And if eating disorders are as common in pregnancy as the Times thinks, medical professionals might want to reconsider which side of caution they err on.

Photo by tomeppy.

Strollerderby : pregnancy weight gain

Are More Pregnant Women Suddenly Starving Themselves?