New research from Queensland, Australia, shows that the number of children ages 13 or under being diagnosed with eating disorders at community mental health services has quadrupled in the past five years. In light of this disturbing trend, experts are warning parents to limit child exposure to TV weight loss shows and dieting paraphernalia.

Julie Parker, general manager of the Butterfly Foundation, which supports people with eating disorders, commented on the "dangerous" and confusing nature of weight loss shows for children: "We constantly have a dieting and thin culture in front of us, and children and young people are exposed like never before."

According to Parker, very young children in particular should not be exposed to extreme weight loss programs because they tend to present "a very warped and unrealistic view of exercise, dieting and health."

Bruce McDermott, University of Queensland professor of child and adolescent psychiatry, called the increase in diagnoses a "robust trend," but stressed that no one really knows the cause. "There are influences on childhood in the last 10 years that have never been there before," he said. "The prevalence of technology in the bedroom - MSN, YouTube, Internet and TV - fairly relentlessly gives a message that thin is good, thin is beautiful and thin is desirable."

(Source: www.news.com.au)

Labels: tv, weight loss

Recent reports indicate that rates of male anorexia are on the rise in the United Kingdom, possibly fueled by the recent global economic recession.

Professor Hubert Lacey, who runs the eating disorder unit at St George's Hospital in London, has seen the number of male referrals double in the past few years. "These are just my observations, and because the numbers are so small statistics can be misleading, but I think there has been a cultural change," he said. "The recession is a factor because, when jobs are under threat, people think more about how they present themselves."

Related to male anorexia is another kind of male eating disorder called dysmorphia, or "bigorexia," in which males relentlessly pursue the development of bigger muscles. Recent research indicates that about 17 percent of males are currently dieting, and that steroid abuse and exercise disorders are increasing in young males.

Experts believe that the onset of an eating disorder in males is usually due to a specific trigger or set of triggers, including childhood bullying, emotional abuse, difficulties with sexual identity, and extreme parental strictness (especially from a father).

(Source: www.streetcorner.com)

Labels: bigorexia, eating disorder, manorexia

Federal regulators announced this week that they are investigating 32 cases of serious liver injury in individuals who are taking weight loss drugs. The drugs involved were promoted by pharmaceutical manufacturers Roche Holding and GlaxoSmithKline.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that between 1999 and 2008, it received six reports of liver failure in patients who were taking the weight loss drug orlistat. Orlistat is currently sold over-the-counter as Alli by GlaxoSmithKline and in prescription form as Xenical by Roche.

Negative symptoms associated with use of orlistat include yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes, weakness and stomach pain.

The FDA has not yet found a definite link between the reported liver injuries and the weight loss products, but the investigation is ongoing. The agency has not instructed physicians to stop prescribing the drug, but has issued a public alert to inform consumers that there are concerns about the medication.

Representatives from Glaxo stated that there is no evidence that Alli causes liver damage. Representatives from Roche weren't immediately available to comment.

(Source: wsj.com)

Labels: drugs, liver damage, weight loss drugs

Compulsive exercise, or exercise addiction, is recognized by many eating disorders experts as a form of disordered eating. Individuals who exercise excessively in order to lose weight can develop what is referred to by some as "anorexia athletica." A new study by scientists at Tufts University indicates that exercise junkies experience many of the same withdrawal symptoms as drug addicts when they stop or are prevented from exercising, including trembling, teeth chattering and drooping eyelids.

In the journal Behavioral Neurology, the Tufts researchers wrote: "Excessive running shares similarities with drug-taking behavior. ... As with food intake and other parts of life, moderation seems to be the key."

(Source: dailymail.co.uk)

Labels: drug addiction, exercise addiction

British experts are seeing an increase in orthorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which people become fixated on eating only healthy foods and increasingly restricting their diets. Orthorexics go to extreme measures to avoid foods they see as "unhealthy" - fats, carbohydrates, preservatives, and others.
Deanne Jane, the founder of the National Centre for Eating Disorders in Britain, believes that at some point, society became disconnected from food. She believes that individuals with orthorexic tendencies receive motivation and encouragement from a number of supposedly trustworthy sources:

"It's everywhere, from the people who think it's normal if their friends stop eating entire food groups, to the trainers in the gym who [promote] certain foods to enhance performance, to the proliferation of nutritionists, dieticians and naturopaths. ... This is all grist for the mill to those looking for proof to confirm or encourage their anxieties around food."

As an individual's diet becomes more and more restricted, the risk of rapid and unhealthy weight loss, as well as malnutrition, osteoporosis, and other health complications, increases. In its most extreme form, orthorexia can result in starvation and death.

(Source: pitch.com)

Labels: britian, eating disorder, orthorexia

According to an article appearing this week in the San Francisco Chronicle, individuals working in the food industry often have eating issues. In recent weeks, at least three preeminent food figures, including Frank Bruni, restaurant critic for The New York Times, have published books about their personal struggles with eating disorders.

This pattern doesn't surprise therapists. Dr. David Kessler, author of a new book titled The End of Overeating, comments: "Food becomes a preoccupation. ... We're all wired to focus on the most salient stimuli. For some of us it can be sex, alcohol or gambling."

Dr. Debra Safer, a psychiatrist at Stanford Medical Center, comments: My belief is that you would have to have a proclivity toward overeating in the first place. ...Then the field might act as a magnet. ... One of the ways to deal with the preoccupation of food, but not allow yourself to eat, is to go into the food industry."
Dr. Safer bases her theories on an experiment performed during World War II in Minnesota. In the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, conducted by renowned scientist Ancel Keys at the University of Minnesota, 36 conscientious objectors volunteered to go hungry so scientists could gain insight into civilians who had been starved during the war.

Study participants became obsessed with watching others eat, immersed themselves in food literature and even took to collecting kitchen utensils. Currently, eating disorders experts believe that these reactions were physiological and the same as behavior exhibited by many anorexics.

(Source: www.sfgate.com)

Labels: eating disorder, food, food industry

Night eating is often confused with a similar nighttime eating disorder known as Sleep-Related Eating Disorder (SRED). The primary difference between the two disorders is that individuals suffering from SRED remain asleep while they consume food in the middle of the night. By contrast, individuals who suffer from night eating awaken in the night and feel compelled to eat to assuage feelings of anxiety, fear, panic or similar negative emotions. SRED sufferers are actually sleepwalkers who for some reason gravitate to the kitchen and eating while remaining in an unconscious state.

Dr. Maha Alatter, a sleep specialist and neurologist at Mary Washington Hospital, comments on the behavior of SRED sufferers and warns that it is a serious condition: "They start sleep walking and it's a primal response to go and eat. ... That's a normal human drive. ... It can be very dangerous. ... Sometimes people can pick up non-food material and eat it, sometimes toxic material."

SRED is typically treated in the same way as other sleepwalking disorders, including locking doors, locking cabinets and the refrigerator, and otherwise establishing barriers to prevent the unconscious individual from doing themselves harm. In some cases, medications can also be prescribed to help treat the condition.

(Source: www.fredericksburg.com)

Labels: eating disorder, sleep

A new study by Wake Forest University shows a clear link between chronic stress and excess belly fat. Researchers studied the role of social stress in the development of heart disease by collecting data on female cynomolgus monkeys. The monkeys were fed a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet and placed in a natural housing situation where subordinate and dominant personalities surfaced.

Observations of the monkeys showed that subordinate monkeys were less likely to be included in group activities and were often the targets of aggression. In addition, while all the monkeys gained weight, the socially stressed monkeys gained more abdominal fat than the others.

Lead researcher Carol A. Shively, professor of pathology at Wake Forest, comments on the implications for humans: "We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic. ... Much of the excess fat in many people who are overweight is located in the abdomen, and that fat behaves differently than fat in other locations. If there’s too much, it can have far more harmful effects on health than fat located in other areas."

(Source: www.healthnews.com)

Labels: fat, stress

The results of a recent German study suggest a link between financial troubles and obesity - a relationship that does not bode well for Americans who are suffering financially due to the recent economic downturn. German researchers collected data from 949 study participants who were in debt and found that 25 percent were medically obese compared to 11 percent of the remaining 8,318 study participants who were not in debt.

Eva Münster, from the University of Mainz, Germany, and her colleagues concluded in Friday's online issue of the journal BMC Public Health: "Over-indebtedness was associated with an increased prevalence of overweight and obesity that was not explained by traditional definitions of socioeconomic status."

For the purposes of the study, "over-indebtedness" was defined as "lack of possible debt redemption in due time due to the relation of income and cost of living after a remarkable cutback in standard of living." The German researchers found that individuals in over-indebtedness were 1.97 times more likely to be overweight and 2.56 time more likely to be obese, after adjusting for age, sex, education, income, and health factors such as depression and smoking.

(Source: www.cbc.ca)

Labels: money, obesity

Eating disorder treatment experts are discovering new, unconventional methods for treating patients with disordered eating behaviors. These unconventional therapies include such methods as Art Therapy, Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT), and equine-assisted therapy.

These therapies, which involve expressive and experiential activities, are believed to significantly improve the mental health and behavioral issues of disordered eaters. That is true particularly when combined with traditional therapies such as counseling, medication, and 12-step recovery models.

According to Kimberly Dennis, M.D., medical director of a residential treatment center for eating disorders, "By recreating experiences and relationships, experiential therapies help residents to identify and address issues they cannot yet articulate or understand ... The creative process involved in experiential therapies helps to resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness, and achieve insight."

(Source: PR Newswire)

Labels: eating disorder, therapies

Sheila Himmel, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant critic, and her daughter Lisa are speaking out about their family's personal battle with anorexia in their new book, Hungry. Lisa, now 24, developed her eating disorder in high school, and the book relates the more than six-year story of Lisa's illness and path to recovery.

Lisa grew up eating organic foods, and especially liked Vietnamese and Afghan cuisines. In high school, however, she began withdrawing. Her grades suffered and her parents noticed the drastic change in her personality. They wondered if they should intervene-they thought that maybe she just going through normal teenage emotional turmoil.

Lisa's behaviors, however, were quickly progressing beyond normal. She began hiding food in her room, and cycling through episodes of compulsive dieting, starving herself, binge-eating, and over-exercising. Lisa comments: "It always seemed to follow the same pattern ... I'd start eating better and exercising more, and as I lost weight, I'd think: 'I've gotten to this point, I should go more.'"

Lisa's family sought help for her, and her behaviors seemed to improve. However, leaving home for the University of California Santa Cruz seemed to destabilize her again. Recalls Lisa, "For me, the hardest time was going into college. It's a really, really big change. I was pretty sick when I went in, not eating very much, exercising too much. I'd binge one day and then go back to not eating."

By the second quarter of her freshman year, Lisa-like approximately half of all anorexics-was also struggling with bulimia. Lisa went through ups and downs throughout college. When she moved to a new apartment a week before graduation, the stress caused her to go into a "spiral of collapse." Lisa entered treatment again. Although she has made strides toward recovery, Lisa believes that she will never be fully recovered, that she will always have to struggle against her eating disorder:

"Over the last year or so, after I got out of the hospital and the halfway house, it was a coping mechanism ... It was a constant struggle being OK with having food inside of me. It's not so much about food as alleviating stress or anxiety, feelings that get too strong. I don't engage in that activity as much as I used to. Now it's just become, I'm having feelings that feel too strong, and I choose to throw something up, and well, this isn't helping either. It's always in the back of my mind. It shows how long it takes to get over something like this."

(Source: USA Today)

Labels: books, eating disorder

Researchers at Heidelberg University Hospital have used MRI technology to uncover the first glimpses of brain processes that may explain the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. Researchers examined 30 young women with and without anorexia using MRI technology. MRI-magnetic resonance imaging-was used to record the level of blood flow in different areas of the brain and evaluate key brain network pathways.

Researchers measured the capacity of each participant for flexible behavior modification of recently learned behavior. The young women were shown a sequence of geometric shapes in rapid succession and asked to match them. After one test run, the matching principle was changed. Dr. Hans-Christoph Friederich, head of the working group for eating disorders, commented on the findings:

"In this study, we confirmed that anorexic patients cling to familiar behavioral responses more frequently than healthy subjects, thus suppressing alternative behavior." Related to this finding, the MRI images also showed that "in patients with anorexia compared with healthy subjects, a certain network pathway between the cortex and the diencephalon is less activated. This network pathway plays a decisive role in initiating and controlling actions under rapidly changing environmental demands."

(Source: sciencedaily.com)

Labels: anorexia, eating disorder, mri