Usually, a girl wants to look thin at first, like all the images everywhere in the media. Girls don't feel right with an ounce of fat on them any more (sorry, that should sadly read WHITE girls), and believe me, men (even plenty of Freeper men) are part of that problem. They will call anyone over 115 lbs a PORKER or worse.
So your daughter, a successful, competent girl, decided to lose weight by sheer self-control. And it worked! She may have a "perfectionist" tendency. Then when she got down to her goal weight, it was still so easy to keep going. Why not get a little bit thinner? Once she got below enough fat %age to lose her cycles, it started to become an obsession. Probably in her case at this time it doesn't involve overexercising but undereating. She has become mentally ill at this point, avoiding probably all food but one or two small things a day (which could be strange foods or combinations, like "2 sticks of red licorice a day" or "one salad, no dressing" or "1 slice of orange for breakfast, 1 carrot for lunch, 1 celery stalk for dinner").
They sometimes use another sense to explore the forbidden food. I knew one girl who would buy a cake and sit there and run her fingers through it over and over, then throw it all out.
Being able to control her eating even while literally starving is giving her pleasure somehow and she is kind of STUCK.
She will need serious help, inpatient treatment. I hope you find a great place for her that will treat the whole person.
I remember my SIL before she married my brother wearing big piles of clothing to hide her skeletal body. On a hot day, big ugly veins stuck out all over her.
My SIL is still stuck on thin in her mid-30s. However, it has translated into a functional stage. She will eat protein now, either chicken or nonfat cottage cheese. She has some fertility now, and is pregnant with her 3rd child. But she runs 15 miles 3x a week, throughout pregnancy, against doctor's orders. She goes back to running 2 days after birth, against doctor's orders. She exercises over 2 hours a day, and only eats vegetables, apart from that 1-2 servings of protein a day. But she is functioning and her babies have been healthy if small.
That may not be your daughter's fate, though. I have met women in their 30s who are pleasingly plump and simply "got over" their earlier anorexia. My SIL is definitely a perfectionist still. Fat is her enemy.
I will pray for your daughter. I hope she gets help immediately. She will fight you but ultimately that fight is good: it will internalize your love for her in her brain and she will NOT forget it. One day she will have a child of her own and will understand your powerful love at last, and would do the same for her child.
I do want to say that though I am no fan of the Hollywood crowd, I am proud of the few younger stars who do allow roundness to be part of their bodies. They look much nicer than the stick figures. The round trend (think Marilyn Monroe!) could bring some normalcy back to both these girls who try to be so thin that they put their health at risk and to the stupid young boys who put each other down for having "fat" girlfriends (curves are NICE, boys!).
Ping to post 78... And amen to your comment about the younger stars and rounder bodies -- perhaps this evil trend is finally reversing. However, we don't want to go too far, as we are still suffering a national obesity epidemic too. Just remember, Marilyn Monroe was healthy, NOT FAT!
bump!
Powerful, powerful response. Thank you so much.