I came across the word “Pregorexia” last week and something immediately clicked. This has been the word I’ve been searching for to describe pregnant women who seem to be obsessed with weight gain during pregnancy.
On The Early Show Monday, Dr. Holly Phillips said women cross the line into pregorexia “when they start to change their behaviors and really focus only on that number on the scale, only on their weight. That’s when it gets dangerous. … Everything you do during pregnancy, including your diet and exercise, should be for your health not for your weight.”
I think Dr. Phillips makes a good point when she says that we have never before been more preoccupied with celebrity pregnancies, weight gain and weight loss. We are living in the “How I Got My Body Back” age.
“I think we’ve never before been more kind of obsessed with celebrity culture, and with celebrity pregnancies, as well. It’s not unusual to see pictures of these celebrities the day before and the day after birth and they’re looking super-humanly fit. They’re really incredible.
Another article I found suggests that pregnancy can actually be a trigger for recovering anorexics.
I remember a few years ago I was hanging out with a woman who was pregnant at the time and she asked if someone could get her a glass of water. She then explained that since she was closing in on her 8th month, she was trying not to gain much more weight. Everyone around nodded in quiet understanding but even back then (in my pre-cheeseburger, crazy days) I still thought there was something off about her comment. In essence, she was trying to drink her hunger (and her baby’s hunger) away.
I don’t think you have to be anorexic or bulimic to have an eating disorder or rather suffer from disordered eating. In the same vein, I don’t think you have to officially be “pregorexic” to have a problem. Just because my friend who made that comment wasn’t officially a pregorexic doesn’t mean her mentality about her body and weight was healthy. It’s scary to me that a woman’s preoccupation with weight could actually put her baby’s nourishment in jeopardy. Yikes!
The thought of trying to control what you’re eating at all while you’re pregnant sounds scary to me. Even if you ignore that it’s bad for the baby – pregnant women are often emotionally unstable anyway, so what happens if you add hunger to the mix? Never mind that pregnancy causes cravings that are almost impossible to ignore …
This is a timely issue for me – I am pregnant, and caught myself just the other day looking back longingly at my first trimester… I was morning-sick 24-7. and actually lost a bit of weight, which I’ve since regained. Isn’t that crazy? And it’s not even really ‘weight,’ but blood volume, placenta, um, the baby itself…
Anyway, thanks for this – I’ll keep an eye on myself keeping an eye on my weight from now on, and cut myself some slack.
(Besides, it’s not like I had a ‘celebrity’ body to begin with)
As much as I am conscious about my weight and body, I would not cut calories if I were pregnant at all.
I got up to 300 pounds with my Son and I am glad for it, he is strong, smart, healthy and FREAKING GORGEOUS!! He can also surf the net (kid’s sites) after just turning 2. If I were pregorexic, he probably wouldn’t have come out right.
Your body is pregnant and asking for lots of things and certain things for a reason! Shoot, I’m more lenient (calorie-wise) during period times!!
I’m 18 weeks pregnant and subscribe to a bunch of email “this is where you are in your pregnancy” bulletin things. It’s really appalling how many of them emphasize not gaining weight. Just about every one of them (and some unrelated pregnancy websites AND some in print pregnancy books) trot out that old canard about “giving in” to cravings and consuming an entire gallon of ice cream in one sitting. Because if women don’t scrupulously control their food intake at all times they’ll just go INSANE and eat everything in sight, I guess. And women eating and enjoying food is just wrong.
I haven’t been pregnant before, but… OMG! Shouldn’t pregnancy be about taking care of yourself so that you give the best conditions for your baby? It’s truly sad that weight has become such an issue that even pregnant women are deathly scared of gaining. What about the baby, yo??? It’ll probably come out the size of a lima bean.
That doesn’t surprise me as I have spent many a month in the virtual lap band world where there is a forum set up just to discuss their pregnancies after lap banding. I find it really disturbing. My lapband was removed last October and I’m done with childbirth but can’t imagine what’s going through these women’s heads! It’s a scary world.