Advice for Parents by Doris Smeltzer

Advice from a Scot

Gráinne Smith, the author of Families, Carers & Professionals, Skills-based Learning for Caring for a Loved One with an ED and Anorexia & Bulimia in the Family: One Parent’s Practical Guide to Recovery, was visiting from Scotland this week.  She had come to the States to attend the International Academy on Eating Disorders conference in Seattle.  It was wonderful to have her here when a mother with whom I’ve been meeting arrived to return a book I’d loaned her.  Her middle-school-aged daughter suffers with an eating disorder.

“Either stop living or get fat”

I finished reading Paulo Coelho’s, The Witch of Portobello last night. In an interview at the close of the book, Coelho explains that in this book he wanted to elaborate “On the feminine side of God.”  I am drawn to Coelho’s books because he “writes to understand [him]self.”  In reading his words, I often come to greater understandings about myself as well.

Towards the end of the book, Hagia Sofia, the protagonist’s “alter ego,” finishes a lecture to a gathering of spiritual-questing people while in a sort of trance (“alter ego”/”trance”:  concepts in the book too involved to explain here).  She spoke beautifully the message that has been the topic of many of my blog entries:

America the Beautiful, the movie

Last week my husband Tom and I were invited to fly into Chicago for the premiere of the movie, America the Beautiful (www.AmericatheBeautifuldoc.com), a documentary that reveals the ugly truth behind our country’s unhealthy obsession with beauty.  The Director, Darryl Roberts, spent a couple of days with us a few years ago filming during and after presentations we gave at the Claremont Colleges in southern California.  We’ve been filmed by PBS, MTV and numerous other “Independent” film projects and have always made the cutting room floor.  We had no reason to believe this time would be any different even though Darryl assured us, “Trust me…you are in my movie.”

Walking on fire...

A few weeks ago I interviewed Jessica Weiner on my radio show Savor Yourself…beyond skin deep.  Jess is an Author, Self-Esteem Expert, and Advice Columnist as well as the global ambassador for the Dove Self-Esteem Fund (http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/).  She has recovered from an eating disorder and her books, A Very Hungry Girl and Life Doesn't Begin 5 Pounds From Now, are amazingly funny and poignant.  When Jess sent me her bio for the press release of the show one line intrigued me.  It read:  “When [Jess] is not busy changing the world, this dynamo likes to walk on fire!”