Please look carefully at this series of mug shots...

First Photo: first arrest at age sixteen:

Last Photo: final arrest at age 30, died nine months later

Okay, so this woman did not die from an eating disorder, she died from a drug addiction at the age of thirty (yes, she is only thirty in that last picture)... but please take a moment to look at the transformation of this unfortunate young woman, from her first arrest at age sixteen (I think in the first two pictures she looks like a beautiful high school student... but all too quickly things changed) all the way through her last mug shot, taken nine months before her death. I have a poster of this photo series and I show it to the clients I work with because I know that, like a heroin addiction, if someone has an active eating disorder from age 16 to 30 it will take a great toll on their health, well being and, ironically, appearance. Having worked with many adults who had their eating disorder for twenty years or so (don't think that could happen to you? Only planning on having your eating disorder for a couple years? Be careful... it is more tricky than you think to get out of it... the more time you spend living inside of an eating disorder the more difficult it is to crawl out from under an eating disorder... do you really want to be doing this for the next twenty, even ten, even five years???) I believe the photos above demonstrate the same downward spiral that one goes through with an eating disorder, self-injury, drug addiction, or any other type of self-destruction over a long period of time. I wish I had a series of photographs from someone who had an eating disorder for ten or fifteen years, which could show the progression. Eating disorders ultimately will speed up the ageing process... you will lose hair, gain more wrinkles, weaken bones, & be at risk for a host of annoying health problems suitable for an elderly person. Please consider.

love, lisa