Ellie -

I'm sorry about your daughter. Eating disorders are so common now...very serious, but hopefully you caught it in plenty of time.

Before there was any talk of anorexia, bullemia, etc., I started taking laxatives when I was a teenager to try to lose weight. And I did - but some kind of health problem cropped up quickly and scared me (I don't even remember what it was). I stopped then, thank goodness.

Most teenage girls have a bad body image, or so it seems. It doesn't matter always what you portray to them - my family ate healthily, my mom didn't really diet, etc. But I guess part of my thing came from the times that my mom said I was fat (I wasn't). I don't think that is the majority of the reason, though. It just was a teenage thing, I was pretty fit actually. I remember trying Dexatrim (or similar), a diet candy product, everything.

I guess I never did anything worse because I hate to throw up and still will do everything possible not to (I haven't in about 20 years).
Plus, I love food.

The weird thing is - I have heard that having all the anorexia information on the Web has often * encouraged * kids, not stopped them. There are kids with pro-anorexia websites, it is really quite scary.

I hope things go well for you.