The Laws of Perfection Part I

I am reading Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders by Aimee Liu. The chapter I am on is called The Laws of Perfection.

In this chapter, Aimee talks about a very interesting study on OCP (obsessive compulsive personality) traits in childhood and eating disorders. The study was performed by British researcher Janet Treasure and her team at the eating disorder unit in South London's Maudsley Hospital. This team of researchers wanted to know whether specific childhood traits might "foreshadow anorexia and bulimia".

They devised a survey with questions to be given to 1) patients in the eating disorder unit at Maudsley Hospital and 2) a control group of women with no history of eating disorders.
The questions were about childhood behaviors not related to food.

Here are the 5 traits and sample questions used to test for these traits:

1) Perfectionism: asked about standards with schoolwork, care taken for room, pets, hobbies, part time jobs, time spent doing and re-doing something until it was perfect (i.e. ones hair)...

2) Inflexibility: asked about mayor changes in childhood and how women had responded to them as children (i.e. moving, changing schools, changes in school schedule, etc.), getting upset when things did not go according to plan...

3) Attitude Towards Rules and Discipline: asked if they were the kind of child who felt she needed to always follow rules, how far she would bend rules as a child, questions about compliance, conformity, right & wrong, rebellion...

4) Doubts and Cautiousness: asked if they were afraid to make mistakes as a child (not due so much by parental pressure but by "obsessive doubts that welled from within"), and also asked questions about compulsive caution (being overly cautious, not wanting to take risks)...

5) Drive for Order and Symmetry: being concerned that everything was "just so" and in its "proper place", lining up books, color-arranging closet, getting upset if someone moved their things...

Both groups surveyed (patients in ED unit and healthy women with no history of ED) were high achievers.

Interesting Findings:
1) Each one of the above childhood OCP (obsessive-compulsive personality) traits multiplied the risk of eating disorders by a factor of 7. So, for example, if you had all five of the above traits as a child, you were 35% more likely to develop an eating disorder, than, as Aimee Liu put it, "someone who happily wore mismatched socks". :-)

2) More than 60% of the ED patients had been perfectionists, rigid and rule bound as children.

3) 50% of ED patients qualified as inflexible.

4) More than 1/4 of ED patients had been driven by doubt, caution and need for symmetry.

5) Aside from a handful of the healthy women that had placed high value on rules and order, most of the healthy subjects, though high achievers, had zero perfectionism, zero inflexibility, zero doubt and cautiousness.

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While I was reading the above traits, I kept thinking I would find a picture of me as a child on the following page!!!! I had all these traits as a child and definitely during the worst of my ED.

In my life after ED, I still need to work on perfectionism, inflexibility, attitude towards rules and cautiousness, and drive for order and symmetry. How about you?

peace, hope and love,

Lily