News: Eating Disorders Recently In The News

Addictions & Answers: Behind the insidious 'art' of anorexia

NY Daily News

BILL: Now that Christmas is over, the lose-weight ads are all over TV.  My feeling is all diets work if you stick to them. But the flood of January advertising to "sculpt your body back to a thinner you" must sound very seductive to the anorexic-prone.

DR. DAVE: Did you see the news stories about Isabelle Caro, the 28-year-old French model who posed naked for international anorexia awareness two or three years back? She died last November after battling the eating disorder herself for almost 15 years.

BILL: Doc, why is IT so often a female disease?

DR. DAVE: Bill, that's another dangerous myth —that men have some immunity. Jeremy Gillitzer was an A-List male model with a perfectly sculptured body and Hollywood good looks. He recently died of anorexia –frail and emaciated at 38, weighing just 66 pounds.

BILL: Can't these people just look in the mirror and see something is radically wrong?

DR. DAVE: That's like saying to a meth addict, 'Can't you see you're killing yourself, why don't just stop?'

Read Addictions and Answers in full here.

Study Refutes Myth That Eating Disorders Affect Whites Only
Business Week

FRIDAY, Jan. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Among Native Americans, women are more likely than men to develop eating disorders, a new study finds.

The researchers also found similarities between Native American and white women in terms of binge eating, purging and ever having been diagnosed with an eating disorder, according to the report published Jan. 6 in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

"This commonality between Native American and white women refutes the myth that eating disorders are problems that only affect white girls and women," study leader Ruth Striegel-Moore, a professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., said in a news release from the journal's publisher.
 Read Study Refutes in full here.  




Third annual Bristow race in San Dimas brings attention to eating disorders
sgv tribune

SAN DIMAS - Jackie Bristow's legacy is growing fast, and continues Saturday with another race through San Dimas.
Now in its third year, the annual Jackie Bristow Memorial 5K Run/Walk begins at 8:30 a.m. at the San Dimas Civic Center. Organizers raise funds and hope to bring attention to serious eating disorders in honor of the race's eponymous twin sister.
Bristow died Jan. 1, 2008, at age 19, from complications of anorexia and bulimia. Her death devastated her family, especially her twin Wednesday Vail, who shared Bristow's struggles with eating disorders.
Read 3rd Annual Bristow Race in full here. 

Four-year-old children in Ireland treated for anorexia
Irish Central

Children as young as four-years-of-age are being treated for anorexia in Irish eating disorder clinics.

Doctors have warned that the age of children presenting with disorders is getting younger and there is an increasing demand for services.

The founder of the Marino Therapy Centre, Marie Campion said she has seen patients as young as four presenting with cases of eating disorders.
Read 4 year old children in full here.  


Isabelle Caro, model in anti-anorexia campaign, dies 
USA today

PARIS (AP) — Isabelle Caro, a French actress and model whose emaciated image in a shock Italian ad campaign helped rivet global attention on the problem of anorexia in the fashion world and beyond, has died at the age of 28.

Caro had said she began suffering from anorexia when she was 13, and she weighed about 59 pounds (27 kilograms) when the photos that made her famous were taken.

After a 21-year-old Brazilian model died from the eating disorder, Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani produced a 2007 campaign for an Italian fashion house that plastered newspapers and billboards with a naked picture of a spectral Caro looking over her shoulder at the camera, vertebrae and facial bones protruding under the slogan "No Anorexia."

Read Isabelle Caro in full here. 

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December 2010: ED News

Link found between shoplifting and eating disorders in women
The Mainichi Daily News 

Women who habitually shoplift are also very often the victims of eating disorders, suggests a survey by Akagi-kohgen Hospital in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture.
The institute is a psychiatric hospital that specializes in treating disorders like alcoholism. It found that over 70 percent of female patients it surveyed who were receiving treatment for kleptomania also had eating disorders like bulimia.
"Shoplifting is of course a crime, but in these types of cases, treatment to prevent a recurrence is necessary," says hospital head Michio Takemura.
Takemura and others surveyed 132 male and female patients that had received treatment for kleptomania at the hospital and affiliated clinics in the Tokyo metropolitan area from January 2008 through July 2009. Of the 92 female patients, 68, or 74 percent, also had eating disorders. Of the 40 male patients, 4, or 10 percent, had eating disorders, showing that the correlation was much higher in the female patients.
Read Shoplifting/ED Link in full. 




Why are so many kids being treating for eating disorders?
ABC 15

Did you know that the rate of kids 12 and younger being hospitalized for eating disorders has risen 119% from 1999 to 2006? This is according to a recent study published by Journal of American Pediatrics.

This is such a scary statistic, but why is this becoming an issue for kids so young?
Caroline Miller is someone who has overcome the mental illness of eating disorders.
She wrote an autobiography called “My name is Caroline” in 1988 and at that time was one of the first books to discuss eating disorders and put a face on the disease. Caroline joined us on Smart Family to talk about this battle of eating disorders.
Read So Many Kids in full.



Tis The Season: Surviving The Holidays With An Eating Disorder
Sacramento Press

When we think of the holidays, our thoughts often go to family, friends, gift-giving, shopping and, yes, food.
Celebrating the season while sharing food with loved ones is part of our collective culture and something we look forward to. But for individuals struggling with an eating disorder, this can often be one of the most distressing times of year.
In the United States, an estimated 8 million girls and women and 1 million boys and men struggle with an eating disorder. Although the average age of onset is 14 to 16, there is no age, gender or cultural limit on who struggles or for how long. Women and men in their 30s, 40s and beyond struggle with anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder. An estimated 10 percent die.
Read Tis The Season in full.
Check out this and also this for more holiday survival tips. 



'Plus-sized' model Crystal Renn looks decidedly 'model-sized' in Zac Posen's new look book
Los Angeles Times

Crystal Renn, a former traditional-sized model who became the poster girl for plus-sized modeling after gaining weight and writing about her struggle with anorexia, is still ruffling feathers for seemingly dropping the pounds that make her "plus."
Renn, who co-stars in designer Zac Posen's pre-fall 2011 look book, was never plus-sized in the traditional, size-10-to-14 sense (she claims to be a size 8), but looks even tinier in the new photographs -- a fact that hasn't escaped chatty fashion watchers online. 
Read Crystal Renn in full.


Among Jewish women, eating disorders go under-reported
Stigma of mental illness on marriageability is cited
 The Washington Times

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. | Hilary Waller remembers begging her mother to let her fast on Yom Kippur. At 10 years old, she was a bit too young, but embracing the rigid discipline seemed desperately important.

"It felt like I was practicing not eating. It was something that was reassuring and gave me strength and a sense of pride," said Ms. Waller, now a 28-year-old teacher at a religious school in Blue Bell, Pa.

It was the same rush she got years later in college each time she saw the scale tip downward. Ms. Waller, who suffered from anorexia, starved herself until she stopped menstruating, lost some of her hair and was exercising several times a day.

Health experts say eating disorders are a serious, underreported disease among Orthodox Jewish women and to a lesser extent others in the Jewish community, as many families are reluctant to acknowledge the illness at all and often seek help only when a girl is on the verge of hospitalization.
Read EDs go under-ground in full.


I’m not fat, says ballerina faulted for ‘too many sugarplums’
Today MSNBC

A ballerina who overcame anorexia doesn’t need or want an apology from the New York Times critic who made a crack about her weight in a review of “The Nutcracker,” saying the comment hurt initially but is just part of being a professional in a field that demands perfection from those who work in it.
“As a dancer, I do put myself out there to be criticized, and my body is part of my art form,” Jenifer Ringer, 37, told TODAY’s Ann Curry during an interview Monday. “At the same time, I am not overweight."
Read Ballerina in full.



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Eating Disorders In The News: August 2010

Judge OKs $55K Anorexia Bullying Settlement in Pa.

PITTSBURGH —  A federal judge on Wednesday approved letting Pittsburgh Public Schools pay $55,000 to settle what's believed to be a first-of-its-kind lawsuit by a woman who claims her daughter was bullied into anorexia - even though the plaintiffs now feel slighted.

The 37-year-old woman identified only as "Mary V." in court documents, and her daughter, now 15, sued last August over harassment by boys during the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years, when the girl was in sixth and seventh grade.

The girl's mother now pays about $6,000 a year for the girl to attend private school, attorney Edward Olds told U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose on Wednesday. That tuition was apparently part of the reason the woman and her daughter were upset that the judge enforced a settlement agreement signed in May after a five-hour mediation session.
Read in full: Anorexia Bullying Settlement


Why Airbrushing of FashionPhotos is so Dangerous

WITH impossibly thin waistlines, they have been airbrushed to perfection.

Photographs of waif-like celebrities and models are impossible to escape as they stare out from magazine covers or TV adverts.

Now two young women from Hampshire battling anorexia and bulimia have spoken out to back a new campaign to make sure altered images are labelled.

Girlguiding UK has called for the coalition Government to force the media to take the measures to protect young women.

It says its research shows half of 16- to 21-year-old girls consider having surgery to change the way they look, with 42 per cent of 11- to 16-year-olds admitting to watching what they eat. 
Read in full: Airbrushing Dangerous


 Gaga's Battles With Bulimia

She’s big news. Named on Time Magazine’s list of most influential people in the world and seller of 5 million albums and over 40 million singles worldwide, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, has made news yet again: by talking about her struggles with bulimia. This month’s Vanity Fair cover story details the exploits of pop diva Gaga, including her eating disorder.

Gaga follows a long list of celebrities who have had eating disorders, including Alanis Morissette, Amy Winehouse, Renee Zellweger, Elton John and Karen Carpenter. Celebrities are under tremendous image pressure -- pressure to be thin and fashionable. Gaga was inspired by glam artists Madonna and David Bowie who meld their music with artistry based on clothing, makeup and hair. Gaga is considered a fashion trailblazer, and receives as much attention for her appearance as she does her often synthesized music.
Read in full: Gaga's Battles Bulmia


The Unattainable Lightness of Being: Eating Disorder Madness

Is someone you know on a diet? Probably. Because just about everyone is on a diet, or at least watching their weight, or their carbs or their intake of fats and sugars. But when does normal moderation become not so normal? Is it when you start to see the outlines of ribs and bones that weren't there before? The situation doesn't have to become that extreme for someone to be suffering from an eating disorder. Over 5 million people in the United States have an eating disorder, and the majority are female. But the number is probably higher since so many cases go unreported.

We know the main names: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. But what many people may not know is how dangerous, debilitating and potentially fatal eating disorders can be. Patients with anorexia nervosa have a disturbed body image, an intense fear of gaining weight and pursue being thin at all costs. They are unwilling to maintain a healthy weight. Bulimia is characterized by episodes of compulsive eating, then purging through vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or diuretics fasting, and excessive exercise. With anorexia, bulimia or other eating disorders not otherwise specified, sometimes referred to as EDNOS, extremely disturbed eating behavior becomes a viable method of altering a perceived (and usually distorted) negative body image.

The Health Risks of Eating Disorders
While it is true that eating disorders are usually, but not always, curable medical illnesses, their underlying causes are so varied and complex, they can be extremely challenging to treat. They have been found to recur within families, can result from disturbances in the central nervous system and are often associated with temperamental features like perfectionism, low self-esteem or an extreme need for control. Those with eating disorders often display other psychiatric illnesses like clinical depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, substance abuse or anxiety disorder.
Read in full: Eating Disorder Madness


Local Girl Speaks Out About Eating Disorders

COLUMBUS, Ohio --A local girl is speaking out about her six-year battle with an eating disorder and said that as college students head back to campus, now may be the time to have a tough conversation.

Julia Weisenborn is a born runner, born competitor, and surviving an eating disorder.

"It becomes very addicting and a lot of times, it's a control thing," she said.

Weisenborn was a student at Ohio University enjoying time with her friends, medaling at cross country meets and playing a dangerous game with her weight to become more competitive.

"The worst point was just after my 20th birthday. I was performing the best but I was at the lowest body weight I'd ever been…close to 80 pounds and my body just gave out," she said.

Weisenborn said she had simply stopped eating.

"I spent a night in cardiac wing and that's when I realized I needed help," she said.
 Read in full: Local Girl Speaks Out



Mary-Kate Olson: Childhood Acting, Anorexia Not Enough To Regret $100M Net Worth  

Mary-Kate Olson says she's happy and healthy after her battle with anorexia. While she says she's happy in her day job now, she looks back and feels "bittersweet" sorrow for her childhood days.

Working as a child actress as the adored "Michelle" on Full House, Mary-Kate says looking back she felt like a workhorse.

"Little monkey performers," Mary-Kate said of her past in the recent interview as Marie Claire's covergirl. "I look at old photos of me, and I don't feel connected to them at all".
 Read in full: Mary-Kate Olson


What Parents Can Do About Anorexia

Regarding the Aug. 1 article, "Wrenching Question Haunts Family After Death of Athlete, 16, from Complication of Anorexia," on the tragic death of Kingsley's Krista Phelps from anorexia:

I know her parents' sorrow. We lost a daughter who just wanted to shed 50 pounds too quickly - for her 20th high school reunion. Margaret leaned too hard on DIEuretics (aptly named) and appetite suppressants.

In just three months since Christmas when we last saw her, she had almost achieved her goal. It was to be a surprise. She did not tell us, so we could not make her more aware of the dangers of fast dieting using pills.

More books need to be written; more articles need to be read that will help teens return to the saving path of moderation. Too many kids equate moderation with mediocrity.
Read in full: What Parents Can Do