European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 31, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday july 31, 1973 modern living the stars and stripes pay new York times t Only 71 pounds Waif like and emaciated 23-year-old Rochelle Spango Letl is slowly starving herself to death. Eighteen months ago spa Golett a 5-foot i Inch Brunette new yorker decided like Romany other Young women to diet. Her intention was to reduce her nicely  128-Pound Frame to 3doui113. The diet succeeded and Spang Oleh concedes that she was Happy at a new weight of 107. But not  so i went on another diet and got Down to 100 " Spane Olet said. 6 then another diet until i Gol to about 90. At 90 pounds everyone said i was Skinny and i loved it but suddenly my eating habits began to gel very strange and things go tout of  unknowingly during the dieting Spang Oleh lost he ability to determine and regulate what when and How much she would Lor could eat. A psycho physiological disease called anorexia Nerosa took Over seizing control of her eating habits and in a very real sense her life. Anorexia Nerosa is appropriately described As ayoung woman s disease 90 percent of ils victims Are female usually aged ii to 24, from upper and upper Middle class backgrounds. Simply defined anorexia Nerosa is a loss of appetite from psychological causes. According to doctors however the disease should be defined As an avoidance of food because victims dream about food feel hunger and Are often obsessed with  the disease s symptoms and their affects upon those it afflicts called anorexics Are wide ranging and often bizarre. Among the most dramatic symptoms Are the Fol lowing excessive weight losses resulting from wilful Star vation. Ameno Rhca the total cessation of menstruation. Distorted body image characterized by the victim s inability to perceive her deteriorated physical Condi Tion. Many anorexics even when standing before mirrors contend that they Are pretty and health looking. Eventual muscle wasting in the disease s most Active stages the body in a desperate search for pro Tein begins feeding upon itself often eating away such vital organs As the heart and lungs. Continual constipation causing a Reliance on enor Mous amounts of laxatives. Obsession with food Many anorexics will prepare entire meals for their families bake for their friends but never consume what they  seems to be the anorexic s ultimate goal said a psychotherapist. Leslie Jane Maynard. They want to gain Complete control of their biological physiological and emotional reasons to eat. So they go against nature overriding feelings of hunger overriding the need to refuel and overriding the image of being drastically  according to or. Hilde Bruch. Professor of Psychia try at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and a highly respected authority on anorexia Nerosa starvation is merely a symptom and not the real  main thing i be Learned is that the worry about being Skinny or fat is not the real problem Bruch  it s just a smokescreen and not the real illness. The real illness has to do with How you feel about yourself. There Are Many underlying personality  i Bruch believes that the anorexic s fundamental prob Lem is the fear of being unable to live up to what s sex dec led of her. The disease according to Bruch enables Ike anorexia to prove that she has control that she can something nobody else can and thai she is. Therefore beit makes me kind of unique said dieting to death spa Golett. Starving Rochelle Spang Oleh weighs in. Ii gives me i special libel. I m Noi jut the Ordi nary Man in the it ret. I stand out to a crowd in not a positive in eclat but still i a wiil Maynard. Who treats anorexics at the Dieter s coun seling service in new York City said that anorexics do not see themselves As being Skinny. Some patients actually believe they re gelling fat Sowar get locked into a very Light behaviour of starvation and the diet becomes the most important thing in their lives. Rochelle spa Golett. Whose Battle with the disease has caused her to fall behind in her studies at Brooklyn col lege where she is currently a third year student is no so thin that she is hardly Able to walk from one Campus building to another or climb a flight of stairs. She agree with miss  s observation the diet controls my life. It s taken Over every thing. 1 can t go anywhere or do anything. Ii rules me. It s like there Are two of  Spang Oleh continued there s the intelligent Rochelle. Who knows All about nutrition and what the proper things to cat Are. But the there s the emotional Koch Lle who s dominating and won t let me take the upper hand and do the proper things. It s like she s saying. You Are not going to weigh More than 70 pounds and if you do. You re going to los thai  according to doctors spa Golett has reached a dangerous level of deterioration. Unless she gains a mini mum of 10 pounds they say. She will be hospitalized and fed intravenously against her will. An Ever More ominous possibility is death. The causes of anorexia of Rosa Are not easily determined or explained. There Are varying opinions even within the medical Community about what sets off he disorder. Many physicians and psychiatrists speculate that the disease is a rejection of adulthood a refusal to accept the inevitability of becoming sexually mature. Many Young women develop anorexia during real or imagined Breaks in familial ties during the first year away at College in summer Camp or in the first months on their  the one real cause is Basic emotional disorder sit Verman said. Lots of people have been misguided into believing that Normal healthy Young girls can be trapped into the disease by dieting. That s not True. There is always some underlying emotional  methods of treating anorexia Are almost As varied As the opinions about its causes. At the Standford univer sity medical Center and University of Pennsylvania hospitals patients Are hospitalized and. Through contractual arrangements agree to gain specified amounts of weigh while undergoing psychological therapy. At the Philadelphia child guidance clinic patients Are rarely hospitalized except when their physical conditions prohibit them from sustaining a rigorous outpatient and family therapy  of our patients arc  Silverman said of his program at the babies Hospital of Columbia presbyterian medical Center where anorexia research and treatment has been conducted since 1967. But we Don Tuse behaviour modification medication chemicals or supplements to gel them Back on their feet. We Don t want them eating their Way out of the  probably the must heartbreaking affect of Ano Rexia Nerosa is the frustration in brings to the Ami lies of its victims. What is a Mother or father to do helplessly watching a daughter destroy herself and who is to blame it affects my family  spa Golett said they re Hurt by it they re my parents and they love me so much but there s nothing they can do Lor me but