hard to swallow

There was a story and photos in the weekend news about a teenage girl who celebrated her 18th birthday on January 5.  There wasn’t much to celebrate except that she had reached eighteen. Just. Whether she makes nineteen is highly unlikely.

Catena Dimauro has suffered from anorexia and bulimia for six years. She is dangerously ill. She weighs only 26 kilos – about the weight of an eight-year-old child. The photos of her are haunting. A gaunt figure with matchstick legs and arms like someone from a concentration camp.

The pictures are proof – as if it is needed – that anorexia is a mental problem that becomes physical. No sane person with that emaciated body could look in a mirror and think they were fat.

You feel for her family. For any anorexic’s family. They must stand by helplessly watching a loved child inexorably killing themselves. If Catena Dimauro survives she has already done irretrievable damage to a supposedly growing body. Her reproduction organs must have already atrophied. Her muscles non-existent. Kidneys and liver struggling to do their jobs.

Understandably, parents look for people to blame.  Catena’ father, Frank,  says the system has failed her. His daughter WAS taken out of school and treated at the Westmead Children’s Hospital in Sydney. But  when she turned 16 she had to be transferred to an adult psychiatric ward.  Since then she has received treatment at several medical centres.  What is the so-called ‘system’ supposed to do?

How do you convince an obsessed teenager that she is killing herself?  And this insidious battle with self-esteem can hit any teenage girl. Only a few days ago we had the frank revelations from Olivia Newton John’s talented daughter Chloe that she had managed to come back from her own personal brink.

You can blame the fashion industry and ultra-thin models going back forty years to Twiggy and Verushka but that wont give a life back to Cetana Dimauro.

Monday, January 15, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007