NEDA Offers Eating Disorder Tool Kits For Parents and Educators

The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) is dedicated to supporting and helping those affected with eating disorders and their families. It's a non profit organization "formed in 2001, when Eating Disorders Awareness & Prevention (EDAP) joined forces with the American Anorexia Bulimia Association (AABA) – merging the largest and longest standing eating disorders prevention and advocacy organizations in the world. The merger was the most recent in a series of alliances that has also included the National Eating Disorder Organization (NEDO) and the Anorexia Nervosa & Related Disorders (ANRED)."

"We campaign for prevention, improved access to quality treatment, and increased research funding to better understand and treat eating disorders. We work with partners and volunteers to develop programs and tools to help everyone who seeks assistance."

"In 1999, NEDA established a toll-free helpline and has assisted more than 50,000 people find appropriate treatment. Tallying more than 50 million web hits each year, NEDA is proud to serve as a clearinghouse of information on eating disorders."

Our mission:

"NEDA supports individuals and families affected by eating disorders, and serves as a catalyst for prevention, cures and access to quality care."

Our vision:

"NEDA envisions a world without eating disorders."

Use the links below to access NEDA's tool kits:
NEDA Parent Toolkit
NEDA Educator Toolkit

Sources: http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
picture source: MrsMenopausal

EATING DISORDERS: In The News

ABC News: Eating Disorders Rising in Pre-Teens: Study

By National medical reporter Sophie Scott

A study has found that younger children are increasingly being diagnosed with eating disorders like anorexia.

Child and adolescent psychiatrist at Sydney's Westmead Children's Hospital, Dr Sloane Madden, studied children under 13 years old with eating disorders.

Dr Madden found children as young as eight years old were being diagnosed with anorexia and she says most children were diagnosed at the age of 11 - and many ended up in hospital.

"At least 50 per cent of the children had severe complications from their starvation," she said.

Read article in full here.

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Children As Young As Six Suffering Eating Disorders

By: Thewest.com.au

Australian children as young as six are presenting at hospitals with eating disorders so advanced that almost half require forced feeding to save their lives, a study has found. New data has confirmed that anorexia and starvation are becoming increasingly common among children, with a third of cases seen in under 18-year-olds now occurring in kids under 13. The disease in children is more severe than teenagers and adults because it is being picked up too late, say specialists releasing the data at a psychiatry congress in Melbourne tomorrow.

Australia has, proportionately, more than double the number of extreme cases reported in both the United Kingdom and Canada.

“This is an extremely concerning situation because these kids are very, very unwell,” said lead researcher Dr Sloane Madden, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Sydney's Westmead Children's Hospital.

“We in Australia are much poorer at recognizing this as a problem and getting these children treated.” Read article in full here.
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Students Take On A Cause:

byJ.D. GRAVENOR The Gazette, Canada

Speak the truth. Be straight up. Tell it like it is. From a very early age, we are all encouraged to discuss what's on our mind. After all, honesty is the best policy, right?

Well, it's not always that simple. We are also taught the opposite message, that some things you just don't talk about in public.

But sometimes silence can lead to bad things. In the case of eating disorders, a refusal to admit the problem to others can result in serious mental and physical illness - sometimes even in death.

Read article in full here.

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Parents Lead In Anorexia Fight

Adam Cresswell, Health editor

A NEW way of tackling anorexia that gives parents the prime role in insisting their child eats properly is winning official backing after promising results at hospitals that have adopted it.

The Maudsley Approach is being piloted by NSW Health in Campbelltown, in southwest Sydney, where health professionals are being asked to use it for new patients seeking treatment for the eating disorder.

If successful, the method - named after the London psychiatric hospital where it was developed in the 1980s - will be rolled out across the state.

The Maudsley Approach is drug-free and allows anorexic adolescents to be cared for at home. Parents are taught how to insist the child eats, and to allow a staged acknowledgment of the child's autonomy as weight and healthy eating patterns are regained.

Studies have shown that two-thirds of adolescent anorexia patients recovered by the end of treatment, and 75 to 90 per cent were of normal weight after five years.

Read article in full here.

Sources:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/28/2257501.htm
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=158&ContentID=75544
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/youthzone/story.html?id=48a5c00d-d168-419d-9e10-6d242e8dcfae
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4745557532710220248
Picture source:www.bigfoto.com

rEEG Guided Medication Study Demonstrates an Improvement in Depression and Eating Disorder Symptoms

Article Courtesy of The Earth Times Online Newspaper
Preliminary Analysis of rEEG(R) Guided Medication
Study Demonstrates an Improvement in
Depression and Eating Disorder Symptoms
COSTA MESA, Calif., May 22

COSTA MESA, Calif., May 22 /PR Newswire-FirstCall/ --
CNS Response, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: CNSO) reported today
the results of a study presented at the American
Psychiatric Association (APA) 161st Annual Meeting
by Dr. James Greenblatt, M.D., Chief Medical Officer,
Walden Behavioral Care Inpatient Psychiatry and
Eating Disorder Programs. The poster presentation,
titled "Referenced-EEG Guided Medication Predictions
in Treatment Refractory Eating Disorder Patients,"
provided a preliminary analysis of a patient-controlled
case series studying the use of Referenced-EEG (rEEG(R))
to facilitate the medication selection for patients
with eating disorders and comorbid depression.

The study of eight female patients, conducted over up
to a four-year period, demonstrated that rEEG
successfully guided physician selection of each
patient's medications in the series, leading to
a dramatic relief of depression and eating
disorder symptoms. Successful rEEG-guided
predictions involved medications in the
anticonvulsant, antidepressant and stimulant
classes, often in combination.

Dr. Greenblatt commented, "Despite the small
sample size of this study, the results support
the promise of rEEG as an effective tool for
determining medication programs for treatment
refractory patients with eating disorders
and depression. The decrease in depressive
symptoms, as well as significant improvement
in eating disorders symptoms and weight, for
the eight patients in the trial was striking,
considering that, prior to the study, each had
required either partial hospitalization or
inpatient care, as determined by managed behavioral
health care reviewers. However, following rEEG
medication recommendations, hospitalization days
for the patients decreased dramatically. Anorexia
nervosa is a potentially fatal illness with significant
mortality if early interventions are not successful.
Improved pharmacology, as these cases demonstrate,
could decrease the high morbidity and mortality
in patients with disordered eating."

Primary outcome measures of the study included the
21-item Hamilton Rating for Depression Scale (HDRS)
and the Clinical Global Improvement Scale (CGI)
and the Clinical Global Severity Scale (SGS).
Some of the criteria used to assess improvement
in the CGI included: body dissatisfaction,
drive for thinness, compulsive exercising, binging
and purging.

Improvements in both HDRS and CGI scores were evident
at 8-weeks,6-months, and 2 years (for 4 patients).
The medications selected from rEEG correlations
involved combinations from many different classes
of medications. Stimulant medications in four
Eating Disorder patients did not result in appetite
suppression or weight loss. These results are consistent
with recent findings that ADHD can predict eating disorder
pathology in adolescent girls.

Greenblatt continued, "Specific patient progress during
the study demonstrated the ability of rEEG to have a
real impact on the lives of those with severe mental
conditions. One anorexia nervosa patient had previously
received five different medication regimes, none of
which provided any improvement. The patient had been
hospitalized on five separate occasions during the two
years prior to rEEG testing. Based on the rEEG report,
we medicated the patient with a combination of
Oxcarbazepine and Duloxetine.

This treatment combination is outside of the traditional
medications we would have considered. In fact, there
are no medications that have shown consistent success
in treatment of anorexia nervosa. For the 24 months
following, the patient did not require further
hospitalization, and at the end of the 24 months was
rated as 'Normal.'

"The two Bulimia Nervosa patients in the study had seven
hospitalizations between them, but neither required
further hospital care after being treated by the rEEG
guided medications personalized to their own brain
function. We would never have known or even considered
these medications without the guidance of this rEEG
analysis and associated reports."

Len Brandt, Chairman and CEO of CNS Response, noted,
"I congratulate Dr.Greenblatt on his accomplishments
in this study in which he documented the benefits of
personalized medication selection based on analysis
of brain physiology. It is not only the dramatic
improvement demonstrated in this study that makes it
a compelling analysis, but also that he had carefully
documented treatment history on these patients for two
years prior to rEEG analysis. Generally, researchers
lack accurate treatment histories for patients recruited
to a study, and comparisons of previous treatments
to a new treatment approach cannot be made. The best
alternative is to compare two patient groups that
are randomly assigned different treatment regimes,
ignoring comparisons to historical response to treatment.
Results are typically measured over a fairly short
period of eight to twelve weeks, but rating
improvements are challenging as unique patient history
and symptom manifestation data is unavailable.

"In this study, however, Dr Greenblatt carefully
recorded treatment histories for 24 months prior to
the rEEG analysis. He then measured patients' responses
to the rEEG-guided medications and associated
therapies for 6 to 24 months post initial dosing,
demonstrating not just treatment response, but also
that the response was durable. The long term record
of pre-rEEG treatment history compared to post-rEEG
treatment makes this a notable study.


The full poster presentation and analysis of results
are available via:
http://www.cnsresponse.com/uploads/assets/0000/0066/rEEGEDPosterCNSR2008.pdf

Read the article in full here.
SOURCE CNS Response, Inc.

More information on rEEG here.


sources: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/cns-response-inc-provides-review,405290.shtml http://www.neuropsychiatryreviews.com/may06/rEEG.html
Picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37643027@N00/2050024263/

Self-Worth: The Unconditional Love of Self

Often self-worth is confused with self-esteem. They are not the same. There are inherent differences. Self-esteem, good or bad, is learned. It is an outer expression. It is shaped by many things such as our experiences, our abilities (or lack there of), our upbringing, and so on. It often waxes and wanes depending on what we are dealing with at any given time. That's not to say that we can't learn to have a healthy, positive self-esteem if we currently do not. We can.

Self-worth, on the other hand, is an inner expression. It is self-love. It is something you enter this world already possessing. It is yours without question, an integral part of your being. It can be nurtured and appreciated, or ignored and forgotten. No matter how you choose to treat your self-worth it never fails to retain it's innate value because self worth has nothing to do with what type of car you drive, your occupation, how much you weigh, your age, your finances, how others view you, or even your opinion of it. That doesn't mean that how you view your self-worth isn't important and doesn't affect how you feel it's just that, do to it what you will, it is still what it is ... invaluable.

Let us pretend that self-worth is a tangible object. Hold it in your hand. Turn it over, and over, and study it. You will find that it's comprised of unconditional self-love, acceptance, and joy. You may see faded remnants of your past mistakes in there, or your own dysfunctional opinion of yourself but look closely and you will see they are embraced by understanding and the acceptance that life consists of making mistakes and the lessons learned from them. It's this acceptance of yourself, and your right to love yourself despite anything that happens, that makes self-worth so valuable.

Losing sight of one's own self-worth is more common than many may realize. When we do not take the time to acknowledge our worth, appreciate it, and nurture it, the result is often a loss of self-confidence, a lack of joy, and a host of other negative emotions. Recognizing your self worth is extremely important. When you do this you reap the benefits of self-acceptance, self-confidence, motivation, and happiness.

Though self-worth is a permanent part of your being, the condition it is in is entirely up to you. When you have sole control over something it is your responsibility for it's outcome and your sense of worth falls into this category. You get to decide how healthy it is, how well it is recognized and expressed. Nurturing the concept that you are worthy is empowering. Loving yourself is not selfish or narcissistic. Loving yourself enables you to love others more effectively.

Accepting that you are worthy leads to a more fulfilling and happy life. So...

*Love yourself.

*Accept yourself.

*Forgive yourself.

*Be kind to yourself.

*Believe in yourself.

*Take care of yourself.

*Accept that you will make mistakes. Learn from those mistakes. Accept that this is an inevitable part of this wonderful experience called life and has no bearing on your self-worth.

*Do not define your worth by your role in life (parent, child, mother, father, spouse), your career/job, or position. Self-worth has nothing to do with these roles.

*Realize that you are unique.

*Recognize and celebrate the many aspects of who you are.


"As long as we look outside of Self - with a capital S - to find out who we are, to define ourselves and give us self-worth, we are setting ourselves up to be victims."
Robert Burney


"Through self-doubt, we lose our sense of self-worth."
Unknown

"Envy is a symptom of lack of appreciation of our own uniqueness and self-worth. Each of us has something to give that no one else has."
Unknown

"If you can't accept yourself, then certainly no one else will."
Sasha Azevedo

"A conviction of self-worth and passion for ideals fuse in a life attitude that is positive, free, noble and spiritually enhancing."
Bill Jay

"Our sense of self-worth is also key to being able to appreciate the other factors of fulfillment. Interestingly, feeling compassion for others is the most reliable way to increase our own self-worth."
Dalai Lama

see also:

• Self-worth Quotes
• Self-love Quotes
  

• Using Affirmations: Eating Disorder Recovery
• Body Image and Self-Esteem
• Building Self-Esteem
• Beauty: The Digitally Altered Ideal

quote sources:
http://en.thinkexist.com/reference/self_worth_quotes/
http://www.selfesteemawareness.com/self-esteem-self-worth-quotes.htm

Recently In The News: Eating Disorders

When Body Matter Matters By Smriti Daniel

"From billboards to television shows, from the catwalks to the fashion magazines, it has always been apparent that being "good looking" in our times, is sometimes as simple as just being slim. However, being underweight is not always a choice, and can sometimes be a symptom of an underlying disease, says Dr. Senaka Rajapakse, Consultant Physician, and Senior Lecturer in Medicine, at the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo."

"This week, he speaks to Mediscene about what exactly it means to be underweight and the impact your weight has on your wellbeing..."

This article includes the following subjects:

*Being underweight - when is it normal and when is it a health problem?

*What about voluntary weight loss?

*How seriously does it impact overall health?

*Can the ill effects be reversed?Read article in full here.

-------------------

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - "Anorexic women with a history of childhood anxiety may have particularly severe symptoms of the eating disorder, a study suggests."

"It's known that anxiety disorders, like social phobia and obsessive compulsive disorder, are far more common among people with anorexia than in the general population. Often, these anxiety disorders appear before the eating disorder does."

"In the new study, published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, researchers looked at whether a history of childhood "overanxious disorder" was related to the severity of women's anorexia."

"Dr. Cynthia M. Bulik, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues found that of 637 women with anorexia, 39 percent reported symptoms of childhood overanxious disorder. In nearly all cases, those symptoms arose before the onset of their anorexia." Read article in full here.

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The New Face Of Eating Disorders: Starve, binge, purge cycle on rise among Mid-life women.
By: Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service

"It allows them to feel a sense of accomplishment in a world that might feel very chaotic and out of control."

Dr. Lara Ostoloksy says more older women are seeking help partly because eating disorders don't hold the same stigma they once did."

"The thinking used to be that there was no biological component to them, ``so that if a person is having eating disordered behaviours like binging and vomiting and laxative (abuse) and starving themselves, it was all an attention- seeking behaviour. The research now says that's entirely not the case...''

Read article in full here.

---------

sources: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/080518/MediScene/mediscene-000_05.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080516/hl_nm/anxiety_anorexia_dc
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=b70c33d9-5b74-4b37-bb02-ed47400b6762&p=2
picture source: http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/images/newspaper.jpg

Starting Recovery From An Eating Disorder

Another wonderful ED recovery video by Holdingon.



sources: http://youtube.com/results?search_query=starting+recovery+from+an+eating+disorder&search_type=

Other Voices: Eating Disorders and Body Image

"Food is nourishment. This is an obvious fact. But eating disorders aren’t about nourishment, at least not nourishment for the body. If you have an eating disorder you eat too much or too little or of types of food that provide little or no physical sustenance..."
Read in full: Eating Disorder Recovery And Nourishing Your Right Hemisphere:
By Joanna Poppink, MFT

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"This may be the most difficult task of all: keeping your eating disorder at bay. Even when you’re doing well, it always seems to be there lurking, doesn’t it? ..."

Read in full: Keeping It At Bay: by Arielle Becker

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"This Mask I Wear"

"Only revealed in shadowwith steady gaze
the bare reflection
guarded
flesh
pale and colorless ..."

Read in Full: This Mask I Wear: By Angela Minard

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"HB 1432 will strengthen the Illinois mental health insurance parity law by providing fair and equal insurance coverage for those suffering from anorexia nervosa and bulimia..."

Read in full: Illinois House Bill 1432 To Provide Fair and Equal Coverage For Eating Disorders: By OhYeahBabe

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Information on Very Low Calorie DietsRead in full:Research on Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD) Risks: By A Pinch Of Health

-------
Age 22 "I've always had the puppy fat, and it didn't bother me until, when I was about 9, my body became a target of bullying. So I started hating myself. My mum kept telling me it was puppy fat and it would go, but it didn't. I was teased. I was called ugly. Kids jeered at me from across the playground. I hated myself..."Read in full: The Body Image Project


Sources:
http://stopeatingdisorders.com/eating-disorder-recovery-and-nourishing-your-right-hemisphere
http://www.lookinggood-feelinggreat.co.uk/LatestNewsnbsp/Anorexia-increasingly-affecting-older-women-/tabid/54/articleID/18589448/Default.aspx
http://tearstowords.blogspot.com/2008/04/keeping-it-at-bay.html
http://hereandnow4angel.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-mask-i-wear.html
http://kimorexia.blogspot.com/2008/05/illinois-house-bill-1432-to-provide.html
http://www.apinchofhealth.com/resources/lowcarb/VLCD-Research.html
http://thebodyimageproject.blogspot.com/
picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelrhys/40428909/

Eating Disorders: Inspirational Recovery Quotes #3

Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget about everything except what you're going to do now - and do it.
-William Durant-

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
- Thomas Edison-

It does not matter how deep you fall, what matters is how high you bounce back.
- unknown-

You don't have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.
-Dan Millman-

Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.
-Og Mandino-

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
- Ambrose Redmoon-

Determination, patience and courage are the only things needed to improve any situation.
- Peter Sinclair-

Fall seven times, stand up eight.
- Japanese proverb-

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
-Martin Luther King -

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
- Dr. Dale Turner-

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
- Anatole France-

He who has hope has everything.
-Arabian Proverb-

If you share your pain, you cut it in half, if you don't, you double it.
-unknown-

People with goals succeed because they know where they're going.
-Earl Nightingale-

We will either find a way, or make one.
-Hannibal-

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.
- Pablo Picasso-

Happiness is like a butterfly.
The more you chase it, the more it eludes you.
But if you turn your attention to other things,
It comes and sits softly on your shoulder.
-Anonymous-

Open your eyes and look within. Are you satisfied with the life you are living?
-Bob Marley- Exodus.-

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite well that just to be alive is a grand thing.
-Agatha Christie-

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
-W. Somerset Maugham-

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
-George Eliot-

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
-Emily Dickinson-

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
-Kahlil Gibran-

See also Using Affirmations

See sidebar for more inspirational quotes and quotes of the week.

sources: http://www.realmentalhealth.com/inspiration/inspirational_quotes_recovery.asp
http://www.something-fishy.org
picture source: MrsMenopausal

Hunger Hormone Triggers Overeating: Medusa Blog

Check out Medusa's excellent post about a hunger hormone that triggers overeating: "Toronto- A hormone produced in the gut spurs people to eat more ..."

You can read the post in full here: NEWS FLASH !!! HUNGER HORMONE TRIGGERS OVEREATING...

Related Post: Why We Overeat





sources: http://www.2medusa.com/
picture:http://www.flickr.com/photos/axomina/5783887604/