Anorexia -- Ballet teacher's remark started it

The following is from the Sunday Times dated 28 November 2010:

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Ballet teacher's remark started it

It was a throw-away remark from her ballet teacher that started Cheryl on a spiral of an eating disorder when she was just eight and in Primary 2.

Her dance instructor had remarked that the costume she had on was a tad too tight.

The girl, who used to enjoy the pancakes her mother made every weekend morning, stopped eating them, complaining of a stomach ache.

In school, she would give away her packed lunch from home to her friends and have only half a packet of apple juice.

This went on for three weeks until she fainted at home and had to be admitted to hospital, where she was force-fed.

Her mother, a housewife, said she was stunned when, after several sessions with the doctors, her daughter was diagnosed with anorexia.

'I couldn't believe it...not until I heard my girl talk about how she feels fat and how she will never make it in ballet,' said the mother.

Cheryl went from just over 30kg to under 25kg in a few weeks.

'She was all skin and bones. I broke down and cried,' her mother said.

The law graduate said she wondered if her daughter had inherited her own obsession with staying slim.

'I felt guilty because I am constantly on a diet,' said the 35-year-old, who admits that she works hard to keep her weight under 50kg, despite being 1.63m tall.

Her daughter, who was hospitalised early this year, is still undergoing therapy.

At home, her meal times have to be strictly monitored.

Said her mother: 'She has come up with a hundred different ways to hide her food. I have, on occasion, found food I had given her hidden behind the curtains or in the bushes in the garden.'
She also pulled her daughter out of ballet class, but not before telling off the ballet teacher for her insensitive remarks.

Now, she hopes the worst is over and her daughter is on the mend.

'At least she tells me when she is feeling anxious about eating or about her weight, which is a big step. So we try and talk about it. And she eats a little more these days and is slowly putting on some weight again.'

Her daughter, who still weighs below 30kg, maintains she is 'a little fat' compared with her friends.

Said the young girl: 'You should see my ballet classmates - they are super slim. But maybe I have to accept that I will never be as slim as them.'