Status of Women Committee on Feb. 10th, 2014

[Jarrah Hodge]

Yes, I've heard and read in a National Institutes of Health study on LGBT people and eating disorders that initially the assumption was you would see more eating disorders in gay men because there is more pressure to conform to a beauty ideal, and that you would see less in lesbian women, but the second part of that was shown in the study to not be the case, that lesbian women and bisexual women would experience eating disorders at roughly the same rate. There definitely needs to be more study done.

Any time you're telling people there is one way to be beautiful and that your main goal has to be to attract someone using this beauty, you're going to have issues, and that is not just a message that goes to straight people.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Duncan, you have the floor for seven minutes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Ms. Preskow, thank you for your powerful testimony, for your courage and your strength. We keep your family with us.

I'm wondering if you can share with the committee what the costs are that a family might have to incur, whether for psychiatrists or nutritionists. What are those costs? What might they be for a year, for example?

[Wendy Preskow]

Amy is on Ontario disability and obviously, that is a limited amount. Even though she actually does get a bit more because she has an eating disorder, with the kind of money that she's given, unless she's living in a hole, honestly, she would not have any money to come out on. Even when she was not living with us, and that's only been for the last six months, we were supplementing her rent and her food on a daily basis. We were actually doing what our therapist was helping us with, which was helping her to not steal. We were supplementing her, giving her extra food and buying her extra food, and a cellphone, which is $70-odd a month. Because she is so riddled with anxiety, using the subway and public transportation right now for her is very hard, almost impossible, so I really have to take her everywhere, to the doctor, shopping for food, for clothes, buying her clothes.

When she wasn't living with us, there was clothing, food, TV cable, shelter, all the basic necessities of life. Fortunately, her psychologist—and I can really thank her publicly—has been seeing her pro bono for the last couple of years because she realized it just wasn't something Amy could pay for and it was getting absolutely beyond us. If you're talking about between $200 and $250 a week every single week, the dollars add up in no time at all.

Because Amy feels so guilty about everything.... Honestly, I would give her the clothes off my back and run a bath for her and we would do without because the pain for her is incredible. She feels so guilty and so bad about everything. She feels like she's a burden. I'm always trying to tell her it's not her fault.

I actually have said to her that Canada has let her down, that she should be somewhere nice and warm and fuzzy, that is not a 24/7 place, but is somewhere she could have access to. It would not necessarily be a residential place, just a place of safety where she could go, something warm and fuzzy that was not and is not an institution. I've said to her many times that what is happening to her should not be happening to her, that it's not her fault, and I'm sorry that her country has let her down. I've said that to her.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Those are very powerful words. Could you be very specific and say what would have made Amy's life easier from the time she was diagnosed right through every step?

As you said earlier, you have to learn this brand new world on your own. There is no help.

Very specifically, what recommendations would you make to this committee so that lives could be easier going forward?

[Wendy Preskow]

What I've been trying to do with awareness.... If families were more aware of what goes on.... A lot of the time, and it certainly happened to us as well, in the beginning, it's such a secretive disease. We didn't keep it a secret, but we did not want Amy to be labelled. I didn't want anybody to look at her any differently as being, “Oh Amy, she has an eating disorder.” If people were more aware of it, and the families were more aware of it....

As well, one of the things I would also say to moms especially is to never say in front of their children, “I need to lose five kilos because I'm going to a wedding and I need to get into a special outfit.”

I never brought the word “diet” into our home. Never. It was never something that she ever heard from me. We're not an overweight family to begin with, so it was never something I ever spoke about. Parents' own attitude and their own acceptance of themselves probably has a role to play with their children. If children see how their parents are looking at themselves constantly in the mirror or saying , “I shouldn't be eating this”, it's going to have an effect on their children.

Other specific things—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Ms. Preskow, perhaps I could jump in.

As a recommendation to this committee, you would like an awareness and education campaign—I'm guessing; I don't want to put words in your mouth so you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong—and something that also targets reducing the stigma. Is that correct?

[Wendy Preskow]

Yes.

There needs to be an awareness campaign that is visible, that is not hidden. Eating disorders are hidden. Especially, unfortunately for somebody like Amy was in the beginning, with anorexia, you can see somebody who looks anorexic by the physical look of their bodies, but with bulimia, you don't know who has bulimia. You have no idea how many of your colleagues sitting around that table could have bulimia.

Campaigns and advertising need to be done in such a way so people know that it should come out. Where we are with eating disorders, I feel, is where AIDS was 30 years ago. Eating disorders are in the same place where AIDS was 30 years ago. All the outcome of AIDS and talking about it and bringing it out into the open has made the whole world embrace and help those suffering with AIDS. I think eating disorders are a full 50 years behind.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Young, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you again to both of you for coming today.

I want to really thank you, Ms. Preskow, for your final couple of comments. You've sort of encapsulated my questioning.

Obviously we are decades behind here. We heard in earlier testimony by Dr. Katzman that the prevalence of eating disorders in Canada is about 1.5% of our population, which therefore means we are looking at 525,000 people in Canada. She was saying that 10,000 people have cancer, 25,000 people have diabetes, and as you know, there's a greater awareness and obviously services and programs and all of the things we've been discussing and heard from previous witnesses about.

Some 25 or 26 years ago, Canada was the first country to stand up and enact legislation about second-hand smoke. That has made a huge difference, because right now in television programs, etc., there's not as much prevalence of smoking.

I want to direct my questions to Jarrah Hodge, because I want to look at the greater societal picture, and I'm also a sociologist from UBC.

Given your experience in blogging and what you hear anecdotally from people, what cultural or legislative changes—and you did touch upon that at the tail-end of your testimony—do you think would cause such a change as we have seen, such as in the awareness that we have of cancer now, the reduction of actors smoking on TV, in all kinds of areas? How can we get to that point from where we are now? We are obviously not yet there with eating disorders.

[Jarrah Hodge]

I think that's an excellent question.

The first thing is it has to be clear that this is a health issue. We have to use some of the techniques that were used in terms of second-hand smoke, such as public safety advertising, potentially looking at warning labels, or at least increasing the accountability on advertisers. Those are things that can be dealt with. I think they would have an effect across the system. We definitely need to be doing the teaching in schools. To counter some of the power of those overwhelming media messages, it would also help to have reinforced in the media and in public that those lessons about how distorted those images are, that is not real and that is not ideal.

Education, health-related awareness campaigns would be amazing. I think research is really needed in specifically addressing those gaps that I mentioned, but also just overall, figuring out where the gaps are, and in terms of the costs. That would also be very helpful for programs.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Ms. Hodge, I'm sorry, but may I just interrupt for a second. I have very limited time and I want very dearly to have you and Ms. Preskow submit any additional information that you have for us. I would like to address these questions to you, and please feel free to write to the committee, because we will include that testimony.

I want to spend my time, just because we have very little of it, asking some additional questions, if that's okay with you. I absolutely agree with you that we need to do more with the media, etc., but that's such a vague notion. I think the reason we are successful with cigarette smoking is that we had cigarette companies to work with and to target, etc. The media is this big vague thing out there.

Ms. Preskow, you said you do not come from an obese family, so you never talked about dieting. You have to ask, where did Amy get these concepts? How did that turn into her eating disorder? What is the link between media and our society? How then did it become a disorder for her?

I think that given how huge this issue is, 500,000 people, and the fact that it's so hidden, we have to ask ourselves these bigger questions. Obviously, it has a huge impact not just on families such as yours, Ms. Preskow, but also on society in that we've lost so much from these people who can contribute.

Please give us those answers.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Hodge and Ms. Preskow, you have the questions from Ms. Young. The clerk will send in those questions, and if you could answer them in writing, or if you want to provide any information that you feel would be useful to the committee, points that you haven't had the chance to expand upon, other things, feel free to communicate with the clerk of the committee, and that will continue to enrich our study on this very important subject.

I want to thank you again for taking the time to meet with us, and I wish you a very good evening.

Our next meeting will be Wednesday, February 12, at 3:30 p.m. in the same room.

The meeting is adjourned.