Weighing The Facts: July 2013

Amy Winehouse's brother: Bulimia is what really killed her
sheknows.com

ALEX WINEHOUSE TALKS ABOUT HIS SISTER, AMY

Amy Winehouse may have been no stranger to drugs and alcohol, but is bulimia largely to blame for her death? Her brother has opened up about the singer's eating disorder struggles. Though Amy Winehouse was well known to be battling alcohol and drug addiction for years before her death in 2011, her brother believes bulimia played a large part in killing her.
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No Bodies Perfect' eating disorder support group launches
stv edinburg

It was a ‘healthy eating’ project at secondary school that triggered Anna West’s obsession with calorie counting and weight loss.

At only 14 years old, Anna began a volatile relationship with food that spiralled into cyclical anorexic and bulimic behaviour, officially diagnosed as EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified).

Many people with illnesses similar to Anna's identify with the term ‘bulimarexia’. For Anna, the knock-on effects of the illness have included anxiety, fatigue and ongoing damage to her stomach.

“I had become aware of the fact that I seemed to eat more than other girls and so began to cut down on the amount I was eating,” said Anna, 25, of her school days.
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Anorexia turned me into an old lady': Six-stone woman, 30, who dieted from the age of 10 to stay young is left with crumbling bones and varicose veins
DailyMail

A woman who has battled anorexia since the age of 10 has been left with the body of an elderly woman. Helen Gillespie, 30, has never developed breasts, had a boyfriend or moved out of her parents’ home. As a child she was so frightened of becoming an adult that she dramatically restricted her calorie intake to delay puberty. But ironically, far from maintaining a childlike appearance, her eating disorder has turned her body into that of into a frail old woman's - her bones are crumbling and she suffers from varicose veins.

'Doctors tell me I’ve got the bones of an 70-year-old woman,' said Helen, from Perth, Scotland.'They’re so weak that I broke my wrist after a fall when I was 14. If I don’t improve, I’ll continue to age prematurely.
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Important Changes in Eating Disorder Diagnoses in DSM-V
ANAD

The newest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders includes some important changes in the diagnosis of various eating disorders. These changes will allow for more accurate diagnoses and better treatment plans for individuals affected by eating disorders.
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Kathy Benn, Mother Who Lost Daughter To Bulimia, Petitions Google To Combat Thinspo
Huffington Post

Kathy Benn believes her older daughter, Shelby Starner, had an epiphany on the night of June 22, 2003. Shelby, 19, had been struggling with bulimia for two years. That night, after having dinner with a good friend, she returned to their home in Strasburg, Pa., and confessed that she had purged once again. "This is not getting better. I want to change doctors," Benn remembers her daughter saying. Then Shelby went upstairs to study for the summer classes she was taking to prepare for her enrollment as a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh that fall. Two hours later Shelby was dead. As a result of her eating disorder, Benn says, Shelby was getting so few nutrients that her brain swelled, trying to create more surface area for maximum absorption. That swelling proved lethal.
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'Men get eating disorders too' campaign
utv

Eating disorders are associated as being a problem that only affects teenage girls and young women, but that isn't the case.

Around 10% of the UK population diagnosed as having an eating disorder are men and it is believed that many more cases go undiagnosed.

The Nugent family tragically lost a son to an eating disorder.

Laurence Nugent lost his battle with bulimia three years ago, when he was 24.

"We didn't expect Laurence to pass away, not in a million years did we think that our son would die," his mother Pam explained.

"To this day we are in bereavement and Christopher has to cope with being an only child. And it is very difficult."

His mum believes that the support for men with eating disorders is severely lacking.

Read Men Get EDs too in full