An Anorexic Thanksgiving

The holidays should be festive occasions when family and friends revel in each other's company, but too often they bring out the worst in us. And when someone at the table has an eating disorder, things are guaranteed to go south.

My family gathering at the Three Star Restaurant on Thanksgiving Day began inauspiciously. It was a cold, rainy Thursday afternoon in southern Brooklyn, and the trains were not running on time. I decided to take a route requiring a one-mile walk.

I had to keep a brisk pace. I was meeting several cousins at 4:00 p.m., and we had to be out of the restaurant by 6:00.

There is nothing unusual about crowded eateries on Thanksgiving Day, and having previously been to Three Star, I knew what to expect. Or so I thought.

Arriving just before four, I found a nearly impenetrable phalanx at the door. Seventy-five people waiting to be seated were crammed into a seven-by-eleven-foot corridor. I hadn't seen anything like this since my college days, when thirty students squeezed into a shower stall designed for five to pose for a gag picture. But this wasn't funny. It took me several minutes to negotiate the human barricade and arrive at the dining area, which was filled to capacity.

I found my late mother's cousin, A., and her husband, H., at our reserved table. A. was very upset that my two other cousins, J. and S., and J.'s wife, R., had not yet arrived.

Enter J. and R. Knowing that S., a mercurial music teacher, was always late, we decided to order. You can tell a lot about people by what and how they eat. Healthy, happy people eat heartily. Unhealthy, morose ones do not. Reasonable dining habits go unnoticed, while odd ones are incredibly obvious, especially on a day known for feasting.

I had long suspected that R. had anorexia. A year earlier, I had diplomatically broached the subject with J. over lunch, and, predictably, he brushed it off. "She's fine," he assured.

Now R. looked worse than ever. She was dressed head-to-foot in burial shroud black, making her tiny body almost invisible. R.'s dark, shoulder-length hair was frayed and thinning. She had deep circles under her eyes, which were sunk deeply into their sockets. Her once pearly white teeth had a grayish pallor. She ordered a plate of broccoli and a diet Coke.

According to the website of the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (www.anad.org), anorexia is a serious psychological illness characterized by the sufferer's being at least 15 percent underweight; refusing to maintain normal body weight; intensely fearing weight gain; and having body image problems.

Nearly thirty years ago, I watched my mother die of this disease. Now another family member is being ravaged by it, and there isn't a damned thing that I or anyone else can do about it, except R. But R. is in denial.

I know from personal experience that reasoning with a denying anorexic is a waste of time. In fact, the attempt often makes things worse. The sufferer will typically either lash out at or ignore the person trying to convince her to eat. My mother's asceticism at the dinner table would drive my father nuts, leading to bitter arguments. Most family members choose to avoid the subject, but that didn't happen this Thanksgiving.

"I should order something on the children's menu," blithely proclaimed R.

"What you're doing is terrible," scolded A.

"I was kidding," a surprised R. replied.

A.'s husband, somewhat lethargic and eccentric at 80, lucidly piped up. "Why are you doing this to yourself?" he earnestly chided. "You don't even weigh 100 pounds."

R. gave him a Cheshire cat grin.

These exchanges occurred in hushed tones, but they reverberated loudly in my mind.

Nobody seemed to want to be there. A. complained of crowds and S.'s tardiness. Even J., known for his bawdy jokes, was ill-humored.

"Why do you drag us here, Ma?" he snapped.

Enter S., a fashionable 45 minutes late. Somewhat disoriented from the bad weather and mobs, he passed our table several times. I got up to fetch him. He, too, was in a bad mood. The waiter, an oasis of cheerfulness, took his order.

"I really don't want anything," S. wearily opined. "I'll just have a bowl of soup."

Nice going. We've got an anorexic at the table, and now her tardy brother-in-law is validating her self-starvation.

A. and H., who have health problems, were sharing a meal. Only J. and I were eating normally. Normal was gluttonous in this group. The irony was so thick that you could have cut it with a knife.

"At least we're all together," observed A.

Toward the end of this gloomy gathering, I had one fleeting moment of fun. A tall, pretty, blonde at the next table was getting up to leave. I noticed her tight, white pullover and luscious figure as she passed by, a perfect dessert for the eyes.

According to ANAD.org, there are eight million eating disordered people in the United States, seven million of them women. About six percent of these cases, 480,000, are fatal. The death rate for anorexia nervosa is the highest of any psychiatric illness.

Statistics at Infoplease.com (www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004615.html) indicate that the number of people dying in the U.S. from eating disorders rivals that of total Confederate and Union troop deaths during the Civil War, America's bloodiest conflict. Meanwhile, our society brainwashes generations of women into worshiping impossibly perfect bodies while undervaluing the content of their characters.

Anorexia nervosa is a very complex condition involving a vast range of social and intrafamilial factors. I don't know R. very well, and would not even think of trying to cure her. Only she, with the help of trained professionals, can do that.

My mother, who died in 1978, never knew R. Seeing another family member literally disappearing off the same cliff was exquisitely painful for me to behold.

Everyone who was at that Thanksgiving table knows R. is in serious trouble. Only she has the power to save herself, and the odds of that happening shrink with each passing day.