My overachieving kid’s anorexia might come back

ASK ELLIE

QUESTION: My daughter is extremely bright and very passionate about whatever has caught her interest at the moment. As a child, she was a serious soccer player, and we spent all our time shuttling her to and from games. She was a strong athlete and very intense about the sport.

In high school, the pressure of being an elite athlete and keeping up her own A+ average started to take its toll on her health. Her mother and I didn’t realize that she was staying up all night to do school work, and was thus sleep-deprived. She always made her own school lunches, and as her mother and I would drive her to school, she’d always have an apple or banana in her hand, so we assumed she was eating both breakfast and lunch. Dinners were often on the fly because of her soccer schedule.

We realized she wasn’t eating when we got a call after she passed out on the field. She was able to come back from that with a lot of support from us, a nutritionist and a therapist. Unfortunately, she couldn’t keep up the soccer and her team went on without her.

She’s now in university, studying hard in her major to get where she wants to be, and she has started coaching soccer. When I talk to her on the phone, I hear the intensity in her voice, the rush, and the pressure she puts on herself to do the best she can at her studies while also giving everything to the kids she’s coaching. I’m worried she’s going to stop eating again and no one will notice because she’s not at home.

~Worried dad

ANSWSER: Your daughter is older and more mature. If her school is close enough that you can go out and see her, I suggest taking a drive and meeting her for a meal, specifically. You’ll know when you see her, and how she behaves at the restaurant, whether you need to worry.

Then talk to her, openly. You’re allowed to be a concerned father, and she will appreciate your love and caring.

QUESTION: My best friend wears her heart on her sleeve and soaks her sorrows in the bathtub. I always know when she’s down because she’ll tell me she’s in the bath every time I call. And she is.

Last week she and I went out for dinner. I could tell something was off, but she wasn’t being forthcoming. This wasn’t like her because normally she talks openly with me. I was worried, so called her the next day.

She was in the bath and said she’d call me back. She never did. I decided to pop by the next day, and she answered the door in her towel. One look and I knew she’d been crying.

I begged her to tell me what’s wrong and she wouldn’t. She just asked me to leave, which I did reluctantly. I’m worried about her. What can I do?

~Tub troubles

ANSWER: Keep calling and popping by. Your friend sounds like she’s going through something intense and she’s going to need your support, even if she won’t acknowledge it right now. Stay connected, stay in touch, keep knocking on her door. You’re a great friend. If you think it’s more serious, call her family.

You didn’t mention anyone else, as in a partner, but I can’t help but wonder if your friend is being abused in some way.

I’m not jumping to conclusions, but something in your letter is making me think this might be a possibility.

Drop by at a different time tomorrow and look at your friend carefully, then insist on taking her out of her house so she can talk freely.

FEEDBACK: Regarding the doctor who wishes to write a book:

READER: Your advice was spot on. The brother and his wife, who ëdon’t seem to be on the same wavelength’ sound to be showing their misunderstanding of the value of books and narrative at the least or showing their jealousy and envy of their clearly successful brother at the worst.

One need only Google ‘doctors who have written books’ to see the vast contributions made by people with a unique perspective on the human condition, both nonfiction (Atul Gawande’s several and varied contributions) and fiction (Daniel Kalla’s thrillers).

Even poetry like In Flanders Fields has been written by doctors. It’s absurd to mock someone for wanting to write a book, and it suggests that the mockers know very little about the process of writing themselves.

Most people have a good story in them. Professional people need to know that writing is something that can be learned.

Kings of Leon pose an existential question to listeners on the first single from their new album: Are you a mustang or are you a kitty? Well, turning that around: Which Kings of Leon are we getting now? The purring arena-rockers or an edgy, untamed stallion?

Judging from the 12 tracks on “Can We Please Have Fun,” it’s time to pull out a saddle. There’s a raw unpredictability to the band’s ninth album, a welcome return to the Kings’ early sawdust-and-spilledbeer days. Yes, we can definitely have fun here. Brothers Caleb, Jared and Nathan Followill, and cousin Matthew Followill have put out the new album 21 years after their debut, “Youth & Young Manhood” and it’s more like their first recordings and easily their best in years.

A punky, garage feel flows through many of the tracks, with the bass and drums cranking and Caleb Followill’s voice cracking on tracks like “Hesitation Generation” and “Nothing to Do.” “Actual Daydream” has a country-infused indie vibe, and first single “Mustang” is angular and strutting, while “Don’t Stop the Bleeding” is a sultry arena banger and “Nowhere to Run” makes your heart pump faster.

But it’s “Split Screen” that is the album’s brightest track, a slow burn built around a guitar noodle and with enigmatic lyrics that nod to a mid-life crisis and parental angst (“hyperventilation,” “set it down before your break it” and “big plan. Let’s cancel”). It’s hypnotic, and easily one of the band’s best, the perfect mix of minimalist mixed with coiled power.

The album is produced by Kid Harpoon, who has sharpened albums by Harry Styles, Florence + The Machine and Miley Cyrus. It’s the first time Harpoon has worked with the Kings. The combo has somehow lanced the inflated, mighty Kings and brought them closer to the jagged sound they started with.

Lyric-wise, sex on fire has been replaced by crying babies on airplanes and hair extensions. But this is a band that even in midlife is embracing their inner mustangs, not kitties. “If I could be so bold all the time,” go the lyrics to “Split Screen” – perhaps a prayer for them, and for us.

Thousands of ride-or-die Taylor Swift fans who missed out on her U.S. concert tour last year or didn’t want to buy exorbitantly priced tickets to see her again found an out-of-the-way solution: Fly to Europe.

The pop star is scheduled to kick off the 18-city Europe leg of her record-setting Eras Tour in Paris on Thursday, and planeloads of Swifties plan to follow Miss Americana across the pond in the coming weeks. The arena where Swift is appearing said Americans bought 20% of the tickets for her four sold-out shows. Stockholm, the tour’s next stop, expects about 10,000 concertgoers from the U.S.

A concert might sound like an odd raison d’etre for visiting a foreign country, especially when fans can watch the Eras Tour from home via the documentary now streaming on Disney+. Yet online travel company Expedia says continent-hopping by Swift’s devotees is part of a larger trend it dubbed “tour tourism” while observing a pattern that emerged during Beyonce’s Renaissance world tour.

Some North American fans who plan to fly overseas for the Eras Tour said they justified the expense after noticing that tighter restrictions on ticket fees and resales in Europe made seeing Swift perform abroad no more costly -- and potentially cheaper -- than catching her closer to home.

“They said, ‘Wait a minute, I can either spend $1,500 to go see my favorite artist in Miami, or I can take that $1,500 and buy a concert ticket, a round-trip plane ticket, and three nights in a hotel room,” Melanie Fish, an Expedia spokesperson and travel expert, said.

That was the experience of Jennifer Warren, 43, who lives in St. Catharines, a city in the Niagara region of Ontario. She and her 11-year-old son love Swift but had no luck scoring what she considered as decently priced tickets in the U.S. Undeterred, Warren and her husband decided to plan a European vacation around wherever she managed to get seats. It turned out to be Hamburg, Germany.

“You get out, you get to see the world, and you get to see your favorite artist or performer at the same time, so there are a lot of wins to it,” said Warren, who works as the director of research and innovation for a mutual insurance company.

The three VIP tickets she secured close to the stage -- “I would call it brute-force dumb luck” -- cost 600 euros ($646) each. Swift subsequently announced six November tour dates in Toronto, within driving distance of Warren’s home. “Absolute nose-bleed seats” already are going for 3,000 Canadian dollars ($2,194) on secondary resale sites like Viagogo, Warren said.

TOUR TOURISM: IS IT REALLY A THING?

Hard-core fans trailing their favorite singer or band on tour is not a new phenomenon. “Groupie” emerged in the late 1960s as a somewhat derogatory word for the ardent followers of rock bands. Deadheads took to the road in the 1970s to pursue the Grateful Dead from city to city.

More recently, music festivals like California’s Coachella and England’s Glastonbury, and concert residencies in Las Vegas by the likes of Elton John, Lady Gaga and Adele, have attracted travelers to places they wouldn’t otherwise visit, Fish noted.

Travel and entertainment analysts have also spoken of a pent-up consumer demand for “experiences” over material objects since the coronavirus pandemic. Some think the willingness of music lovers to broaden their fandom horizons is part of the same mass cultural correction.

“It does seem like it’s more than a structural shift, maybe a personality transformation we all went through,” said Natalia Lechmanova, the chief Europe economist for the Mastercard Economics Institute.

As Swift hopscotches across Europe, Lechmanova expects restaurants and hotels to see the same boost that Mastercard observed within a 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) radius of concert venues in the U.S. cities she visited in 2023. The U.S. dollar’s strong value against the euro may also increase retail spending on apparel, memorabilia, beauty products and supplies for the friendship bracelets fans exchange as part of the Eras Tour experience, the economist said.

Former college roommates Lizzy Hale, 34, who lives in Los Angeles, and Mitch Goulding, 33, who lives in Austin, Texas, already had tickets to see the Eras Tour in L.A. last summer when they decided to try to get ones for Paris, London or Edinburgh, Scotland, too. They saw a Europe concert trip as a makeup for travel plans they had in May 2020 to celebrate Goulding’s birthday but had to cancel due to the pandemic.

Goulding managed to secure VIP tickets for one of Swift’s three Stockholm shows. He, Hale and two other friends scheduled a 10-day trip that also includes time in Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

“As people who enjoy traveling and enjoy music, if you can find an opportunity to combine the two, it’s really special,” said Hale, who is pregnant with her first child.

FOR STOCKHOLM, 120,000 SWIFTIES CAN’T BE WRONG

The local economic impact of what the zeitgeist has termed “Swiftonomics” and the “Swift lift” can be considerable. It’s no wonder the exclusive arrangement Singapore’s government made with Swift to make the city-state her only tour stop in Southeast Asia earlier this year aroused regional jealousy.

No European governments have complained of their countries not being among the dozen selected for the Europe leg of the Eras Tour, although some fans have expressed surprise that Gelsenkirchen, a city with a population of about 264,000 is one of the three cities in Germany that made the cut.

Airbnb reported Tuesday that searches on its platform for the U.K. cities where Swift is performing in June and August -Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and London -- increased an average of 337% when tickets went on sale last summer.

Not to be outdone when it comes to trend-spotting, the property rentals company cited the demand as an example of “passion tourism,” or travel “driven by concerts, sports and other cultural events.”

In Stockholm, 120,000 out-of-towners from 130 countries -- among them 10,000 from the U.S. -- are expected to swarm Sweden’s capital this month, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Chief Economist Carl Bergqvist said. Stockholm is the only Scandinavian city on Swift’s tour, and airlines added extra flights from nearby Denmark, Finland and Norway to bring people to the May 17-19 shows, he said.

The city’s 40,000 hotel rooms are sold out even though prices skyrocketed for the tour dates, Bergqvist said. Concert visitors are expected to pump around 500 million Swedish kroner, or over $46 million, into the local economy over the course of their stays, an estimate that does not include what they paid for Swift tickets or to get to Sweden, he said.

“So this is going to be huge for the tourism sector in Sweden and Stockholm in particular,” Bergqvist said.

Nightclubs, restaurants and bars are seizing the opportunity to cater to fans with Taylor Swift-themed events, such as karaoke, quizzes and after-concert dance parties.

Houston resident Caroline Matlock, 29, saw Swift more than a year ago when the Eras Tour came to the Texas city. Now she’s making more friendship bracelets and trying to learn a few words of Swedish as she prepares to see the 3 1/2-hour show in Stockholm. The idea of seeing Swift in Europe was her friend’s, and Matlock needed some persuading at first.

“I was like, ‘I only want to go if it’s a country I haven’t been to. I’ve seen Taylor Swift,”’ she said.

Visiting the Scandinavian cities of Oslo and Gothenburg is on their itinerary. The concert is the last night of the trip and Matlock looks forward to interacting with Swifties from other countries: “Americans tend to have a very obsessive culture, especially Taylor Swift-related, so I’m curious if the crowd will be more toneddown.”

WILL TOUR TOURISM ENDURE AFTER ERAS?

It remains to be seen if the music tourism trend has legs as long and strong as Swift’s and Beyonce’s, and if it will carry over to Billie Eilish, Usher and other artists with world tours scheduled next year. Expedia’s Fish thinks other big-name artists in Europe this summer will prove that booking a foreign trip around a concert is catching on.