Eating Disorders Blog

In a Feb. 26 Huffington Post article (part of a post-New Year's Day series on food and health), Concordia College religion professor Michele Lelwica notes that fighting back against cultural pressures to be thin isn't as easy as simply eating more:

To challenge our culture's obsession with thinness is not to endorse a lifestyle that promotes obesity. Rather, my suggestion is simply that, in the long run, cultivating a nonviolent relationship with your body is actually a more viable road to overall health (physical, mental, spiritual) than torturing yourself with restrictive diets and weight-loss fantasies.

In fact, a crucial aspect of pursuing this kinder, more peaceful approach to your body is eating foods that genuinely nourish your body and spirit.

This means that instead of deciding what to eat based primarily on caloric, fat, or carbohydrate content, you try to eat foods that maximize your physical health. It also means eating them in a way that is attuned to how much your body really needs and that enhances your sense of gratitude and pleasure.

Labels: pressures, health, obesity

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A new study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, indicates that the heaviest children are more than twice as likely to die before the age of 55, either due to illness or self-inflicted injury. The study utilized data collected from the Pima and Tohono O'odham Indians, two Native American tribes whose rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes began climbing decades before those of mainstream America.

The study included 4,857 non-diabetic American Indian children born between 1945 and 1984, beginning when the children were about 11 years old, on average. Researchers assessed the extent to which body mass index, glucose tolerance, blood pressure and total cholesterol levels were linked to premature death.

As of 2003, 559 participants had died (this included 166 individuals who died of causes other than accidents or homicides, such as cancer, diabetes, alcohol poisoning or drug overdose, alcoholic liver disease or cardiovascular disease). Researchers found that adults who had the highest Body Mass Index (BMI) ratings as children were 2.3 times more likely to die early, as compared with those who had the lowest BMI scores. In addition, individuals with the highest glucose levels were 73 percent more likely to die prematurely.

Helen C. Looker, senior author of the paper and assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, commented on the findings: "This suggests that obesity in children, even prepubescent children, may have very serious long-term health effects through midlife  that there is something serious being set in motion by obesity at early ages. We all expect to get beyond 55 these days."

(Source: www.nytimes.com)

Labels: health, childhood-obesity

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Obesity increases the risk of kidney stone disease, according to recent research by scientists at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. For the study, Brian R. Matlaga, MD, and colleagues studied 95,958 patients (57.1 percent female and 42.9 percent male).

Approximately 2.6 percent of non-obese participants  those with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 29 or less  were diagnosed with a kidney stone during the evaluation period (2002-2006). By comparison, 4.9 percent of obese patients (those with BMIs of 30 or greater) were diagnosed with a kidney stone during the same period.

Obese females were as much as 3.18 times more likely than non-obese females to suffer from kidney stone disease, and obese males were as much as 2.54 times as likely to suffer from kidney stone disease.

The authors commented on the results in a recent report in the Journal of Urology: "What the present work uniquely adds to our understanding of the relationship between obesity and kidney stone disease is the subcategorization of a large cohort with extreme, or morbid, obesity. Obesity is associated with an increased risk of kidney stone formation. Dietary modification and weight loss should be encouraged in the obese population for a multitude of reasons but also to reduce stone risk."

(Source: renalandurologynews.com)

Labels: health, obesity

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According to a new study in California, obesity increases the risk that swine flu (H1N1) sufferers will be hospitalized. The study, conducted by a team from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), about 25 percent of individuals who have been hospitalized for complications related to swine flu are morbidly obese, even though the morbidly obese comprise less than 5 percent of the population. Experts believe that obesity is a risk factor as significant as pregnancy for developing complications from the pandemic strain of flu virus.

The CDPH team analyzed data from the 1,088 hospitalizations that occurred in California as a result of the flu outbreak this spring and summer. Half of those individuals who were hospitalized were obese and one-quarter of the group was morbidly obese, with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or higher. Experts are not sure whether the increased risk for infection is a result of obesity itself or other obesity-related conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

(Source: www.latimes.com)

Labels: health, obesity

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A new poll by the Associated Press and iVillage suggests that Americans may have a disconnect in understanding weight versus health. The study found that most American women have "flipped" priorities, overvaluing weight and appearance and undervaluing physical fitness and health.

Approximately 60 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. The AP-iVillage poll of 1,000 women aligns with this figure. Of the women polled, over 50 percent don't like their weight, including 26 percent of women whose Body Mass Index measurements were normal. Over half of women exercise 80 minutes per week or less when the recommended amount for good health is 2.5 hours per week. Less than one in 10 women reported eating at least the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables.

(Source: google.com/hosted news/ap)

Labels: health, poll

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 1 Comment

A recent study, conducted in Australia by Melbourne's RMIT and La Trobe universities, indicates that a majority of women are significantly dissatisfied with their bodies. More than two-thirds of women reported feeling uncomfortable looking at themselves naked. Approximately half of women reported feeling fat every day and desperately wanting to lose weight. One in three women reported regularly scrutinizing certain parts of their bodies to evaluate how much they could allow themselves to eat. Most women reported significant anxiety and distress related to dissatisfaction with their bodies. Only 10 percent of women who responded to the survey reported satisfaction with their weight.

(Source: www.news.com)

Labels: health, women

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The beginning of Krista Phelps’s story is a familiar one: a great high school athlete with a promising academic and athletic future, preparing for her second state track meet. But before the story could get really good, it took a very bad turn.

Phelps, a Kingsely-Pierson (IA) sophomore who was just 16, died on Sunday … Phelps died from complications of anorexia …

The sudden death of a high school student sends a shock wave through a community. Grief counselors were brought in to help students and faculty cope. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

A longtime coach once told me about athletes with eating disorders: "John, anyone who’s coached girls' sports long enough knows of at least one." [Source: Des Moines (IA) Register]

As the final quote in the excerpt above indicates, several experts have noted an association between womens' athletics and eating disorders. Male athletes in some sports are also at increased risk.

 

Labels: anorexia, health, athletes, art, death

Posted By: Stefanie Hamilton 0 Comments

The bones of young girls suffering from anorexia nervosa have fat in the marrow, according to a new study from Children's Hospital Boston.

• Dr. Kirsten Ecklund and her colleagues performed MRIs on the knees of 20 girls with anorexia and 20 healthy girls whose average age was 16 years old.
• Radiologists reading their charts did not know which girls were in which group, and found that the anorexic girls had increased fat content or "yellow marrow" in their bones.

One theory is that the malnutrition caused by anorexia changes hormone levels, which in turn causes the bone marrow to stop producing bone-producing cells but to form fat instead. This may explain why people with anorexia lose bone mass. It is also known that many people with anorexia develop osteoporosis and are prone to fractures.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by low food intake. An anorexic's weight can drop to a starvation level, but he yet perceives himself as overweight.

This study appears in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

Labels: anorexia, health, research

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment