Eating Disorders Blog

Though anorexia and bulimia are the most well-known eating disorders, the majority of sufferers fit into another category. As many as 60 percent of eating disorder patients are diagnosed as having an eating disorder “not otherwise specified” (EDNOS).

“This group is so vast, and the causes within it so diverse, that many in the field believe it creates more problems than it does solutions in terms of treating patients and understanding the syndromes. Patients lumped into this unspecified group can also have misperceptions about their condition, thinking it is not as serious as anorexia or bulimia.” [Source: MSNBC]

Physicians and psychiatrists are trying to solve the problem by revising the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is due to be published in 2013. Often called “the psychiatric bible”, the DSM is the tool used to diagnose most mental health issues.

Proposed revisions to eating disorder-related diagnoses include broadening the criteria for anorexia and bulimia, and separating out some more commonly-known conditions such as binge eating into their own categories.

Labels: dsm-iv, diagnosis, ednos

Posted By: Stefanie Hamilton 0 Comments

A new television show called "Freaky Eaters" features those with bizarre food preferences and the professionals who are trying to help him.

• One episode is about a poet who eats only raw meat in order to prove himself manly to his father, grandfather, and brother, all of whom have military backgrounds.
• Another features "French fry girl," a freaky eater who eats only French fries and nothing else. Her therapist dyes her potatoes different colors in order to make them repulsive to her, and then forces her to eat them.

Dr. Mike Dow, a therapist who hosts the show, says that "freaky eating" could be classified as a non-specified eating disorder (a category also commonly known as EDNOS) . Sufferers often eat just one or two foods, and thereby receive inadequate nutrition. Most of them are overweight. People with the disorder usually have an "emotional addictive component" within their strange eating habits, Dr. Dow said.

"Usually there is something that they are medicating," he said. "There was a study that says it takes more and more of the same amount of fat to cause the same response in the brain. We build tolerance to food in the same way people build tolerance to cocaine or alcohol. There is a biological addictive response that is being built. I don't think a lot of people think of food as an addictive substance, but it absolutely is."
 

Labels: awareness, media, ednos, picky eaters

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments