Yes, somewhat | 12 (25%) |
Yes, very much so | 18 (38%) |
Not that I've noticed | 3 (6%) |
Not at all | 3 (6%) |
Sometimes | 10 (21%) |
For the better | 9 (19%) |
For the worse | 14 (29%) |
I feel empowered | 3 (6%) |
I feel optimistic | 9 (19%) |
I feel anxious | 16 (34%) |
I feel renewed | 7 (14%) |
I feel depressed | 15 (31%) |
I feel hopeful | 12 (25%) |
I feel desperate | 11 (23%) |
I feel stronger | 6 (12%) |
I feel weaker | 11 (23%) |
I am bulimic | 14 (29%) |
anorexic | 15 (31%) |
compulsive overeater | 8 (17%) |
EDNOS | 13 (27%) |
Combination of EDs | 14 (29%) |
Best in SPRING | 17 (39%) |
Best in SUMMER | 9 (20%) |
Best in FALL | 12 (27%) |
Best in WINTER | 9 (20%) |
Worse in SPRING | 4 (9%) |
Worse in SUMMER | 20 (46%) |
Worse in FALL | 6 (13%) |
Worse in Winter | 15 (34%) |
Approximately seven million American women and one million American men suffer from an eating disorder. Ninety-five percent of these people are between the ages of 12 and 25. In this guest post, a Carleton woman tells her story and offers some thoughts about an issue that affects so many young men and women.
I am recovering from anorexia. I am writing this post anonymously because, ultimately, this post is not about me. It’s about me sharing a perverse logic that many women buy into in order to feel better about themselves by complying with societal standards.
I was the “nice, but not so pretty” friend. You know, the one guys went to for advice to snag the hot girl. I accepted my lot in life and didn’t think much of it, mostly because I didn’t think much of myself. My dad would tell me I was fat and boys ignored me. However, I lost some weight by cutting out junk food and got a boyfriend in high school, which made it easier to suppress my painful memories. I went to college, put on some weight by eating too many cookies, and I flipped out. I was so ashamed. I was disgusted with myself because I was fat and ugly again. Boys were never interested in me for being a good person, for accepting people as they were without judgment, for my sharp wit. No, that was nothing. My body was the only thing they wanted, and I wouldn’t get attention for being less than perfect.
I counted calories, and it worked. I got down to my normal weight, and I felt pretty again. However, why stop? Maybe, if I were thin enough, someone would put in the effort to get to know me for me, because I would be pretty enough. I saw love and my weight as having an inverse relationship: as weight decreases, love increases. Right?
Read in full here.
happybodies.wordpress.com-------------------------------------------------
Beating Eating Disorders Even Without A "Cure."
A joyous wake up call just blasted stereotypes about women completely out of rigid cultural perceptions. It happened on the Britains Got Talent show. Susan Boyle, the wrong age, shape, size, and in the wrong hair style, makeup, dress and shoes according to cultural dictates of what constitutes desirable women, ploughed into the hearts and minds of everyone who heard her sing her audition piece, “I dreamed a dream,” from Les Miserables.
Away with rubbish!
Her magnificent voice, carrying the depth of human emotion, hit our senses with her first note. Her talent and strength never let up. As she carried through her song I believe we savored each moment both for the beauty she gave and for the cleansing in our minds of judgemental rubbish we’ve been carrying around for decades.
Her performance is moving through the world at the speed of light touching hearts and minds with a glowing light of love and respect for a whole person, a whole woman who doesn’t live by the beauty standards of high fashion models or celebrity film women.
Heart and dedication blast through formidable obstacles
Her heart and soul, her obvious dedication to her music, her blazing talent and miraculous range, brought a magnificent beauty to the attention of the world.
And it’s all the more wonderful because the stereotype and cultural belief has been, till this moment, that women with a certain appearance could never, even remotely have the power to light up humanity with the force of Susan’s heart coming through her incredibly magnificent voice.
The message to women with eating disorders
If you have an eating disorder, I hope with all my heart, that you will heed the cultural message that Susan Boyle brings to us all.
Read in full here. This is a situation that Marcia sees a lot, most recently in the case of a young college-aged patient. The student reported that although she knew she had an eating disorder, she was told by her doctor that her labs, weight, blood pressure and heart rate were all fine. The girl and her parents were left baffled and confused.
The same thing happened to Marcia as a young girl of 15 struggling with anorexia. In our book, we relate the story of the time when Marcia's grandmother, who was worried about Marcia's plummeting weight, took her to see their family doctor. He found no cause for alarm, despite the fact that Marcia was five-foot-six inches and 100 pounds. "He recommended that I put olive oil in my dry and brittle hair," recalls Marcia, "when he should have told me to add the olive oil to my food."
Even though doctors are far more educated today about the hazards of eating disorders than they were when Marcia was a teen (an extreme case like hers would most likely be noticed by even an obtuse doctor now), eating disorders are still often missed. Patient and family are eager to accept this poor but reassuring advice; after all they don't really want to admit that there is a problem. The professional in the white lab coat is giving them permission to look the other way, and it's just too convenient sometimes.
The reason this scenario -- normal lab results despite clear-cut anorexia – occurs so often is that the body works very hard and very effectively to compensate for starvation. The ups and downs of human evolution have ensured that the body is well-adapted to surviving famine. Usually labs will stay normal until the patient is in very serious medical trouble, and then things go downhill so fast families have no time to process what is happening.
Normal" is a musical that tackles the weighty and relevant subject of eating disorders and how one young girl's struggle affects her entire family.
Artistic Director Chase Kniffen writes in his program notes that "Normal" not only deserves a place in Stage 1's inaugural season, but that it was, in fact, the reason he wanted to create a new theatrical venue in central Virginia dedicated to new and recent works by American playwrights - especially musicals.
"Normal" fits the bill. The play, written by Yvonne Adrian with lyrics by Cheryl Stern, opened off Broadway in 2005 and has apparently not been professionally produced elsewhere since.
Anorexia is not a common topic for a play, much less a musical, but Kniffen and the cast of seven provide an open, in-depth and intimate view of the subject as well as the dynamics of the Freeman family as mother, father, daughter and son struggle to come to terms with the layers of dissonance that would drive a young girl to starve herself to be pretty "to the bone."
With strong voices and solid acting by veterans Ford Flannagan (the dad, Robert) and Julie Fulcher (the mom, Gayla), Dave Amadee's authentically touching portrayal of the concerned brother, Zachary, and Ali Thibodeau's debut in the heart-wrenching role of Polly, the show has a lot to offer. Angela Shipley, Debra Wagoner and Terri Moore round out the cast as a sort of Greek chorus in white, filling in the many roles of doctor, nurse, therapist, flight attendants and the like.
Read in full here.According to a new and seemingly conclusive neuropsychological study, anorexia is the latest on the list of the various genetic maladies we can inherit from our parents. The researchers conducted neuropsychological testing on over 200 girls and young women being treated in hospitals for anorexia in the U.S., the U.K., and Norway. The results showed that 70 percent of the patients had suffered damage to their neurotransmitters, had undergone subtle changes in the structures of their brains, or both. They also found that these conditions occurred in the womb and were not due to external or environmental factors.
This news is of special interest to me. For a period of roughly three years, between the ages of 18 and 21, I suffered from a relatively serious case of anorexia. I know this revelation may be difficult to believe if you’ve ever seen me in a buffet situation (or if you have eyes), but I assure you the period is well documented in my medical and psychiatric records.
Read in full here.
The therapy, known as behavioral family therapy, or the Maudsley Approach, calls on parents to supervise the eating habits of their anorexic child. The approach is being compared with a more established treatment known as Family Systems Therapy as part of an ongoing treatment study at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division and five other centers nationally.
Both are outpatient therapies for adolescents ages 12-18.
"Anorexia is a life-threatening condition. Treating it early is very important since it is during the teenage years that this disorder usually takes hold," Dr. Katherine Halmi, founder of the Eating Disorders Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division and professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, said in a statement.
Read in full here.(ABC) - Young people may prefer a vegetarian diet that's rich in fruits and vegetables. But a new study shows it could also put them at a higher risk for eating disorders including binge eating, taking diet pills or using laxatives to lose weight.
An estimated one in 200 American children is now a vegetarian, according to the latest government statistics.
Vegetarian diets are often quite healthy for kids, exposing them to a wider variety of beans, fruits and vegetables and cutting out the fat.
But a new study finds that some young people may be turning to
vegetarianism as a weight loss strategy and in rare cases, their dieting behavior can be dangerous.
Researchers from the University of Minnesota surveyed more than 2,500 adolescents about their eating habits.
Results showed that both current and former vegetarians were more likely to practice binge eating and to try risky dieting tactics such as vomiting after meals, and taking diet pills or laxatives.
Read in full here.
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Eating Disorders Sending More American's To Hospital
The number of men and women hospitalised due to eating disorders that caused anemia, kidney failure, erratic heart rhythms or other problems rose 18 percent between 1999 and 2006, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Health care Research and Quality.
The federal agency's analysis also found that between 1999 and 2006:
- Hospitalizations for eating disorders rose most sharply for children under 12 years of age - 119 percent. The second steepest rise was for patients ages 45 to 64 - 48 percent.
- Hospitalisations for men also increased sharply - by 37 percent - but women continued to dominate hospitalizations for eating disorders (89 percent in 2006).
Admissions for anorexia, the most common eating disorder, remained relatively stable. People with anorexia typically lose extreme amounts of weight by not eating enough food, over-exercising, self-inducing vomiting, or using laxatives.
In contrast, hospitalisations for bulimia declined 7 percent. Bulimia - binge eating followed by purging by vomiting or use of laxatives - can lead to severe dehydration or stomach and intestinal problems.
Hospitalizations for less common eating disorders increased 38 percent. Those disorders include pica, an obsession with eating non-edible substances such as clay or plaster, and psychogenic vomiting, which is vomiting caused by anxiety and stress.
Read in full here.
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Miss Georgia USA Discusses Bout With Anorexia
Kimberly Gittings is hoping that come April 19 in Las Vegas, she’ll be able to add her name to the list of kids from Lilburn who’ve done well (behind, most recently, fellow Parkview High grad Jeff Francoeur).
That’s when the Air Force brat, UGA student and Miss Georgia USA titleholder will compete for the Miss USA crown. We talked with Gittings about Iraq, her ancestral home of Korea and Michelle Obama’s arms.
Q: No disrespect, but how does a girl who battled anorexia wind up in the pageant circuit? It seems like the pressure to perform and conform to a certain body type would actually exacerbate the disorder.
A: I suffered with anorexia when I was in middle school and high school. I’m 5 feet 10 inches and I weighed 97 pounds. So my parents were on the verge of hospitalizing me. I had heart palpitations, my liver was having issues, my hair was falling out, my nails kept breaking off, my period stopped. What I did to my body when I was younger will [negatively] affect my chances when I’m older if I ever want to conceive kids. But actually, pageants were something of a healing process. They allowed me to talk about what I was going through. [In pageants] you pick a platform that you’re passionate about and you talk about these issues across your state. For me, that’s what I picked. It gives me drive.
Q: Do you feel you’ve conquered it, or are there moments when you think, “I want to win and I need to be as thin as possible so I won’t eat today?” Do you still have it or another eating disorder?
A: I do not. I know how to live healthy now. I do not ever want to be back in that place again. It took a lot of time, money, effort and tears to get over it. Now I love to eat.
Read in full here.
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Eating Disorders On The Rise, Big Spike Among Children
A new report from the government Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality finds that the number of Americans hospitalized for eating disorders increased 18 per cent between 1999 and 2006.
Among children under age 12, the number more than doubled, but even middle-aged men and women are increasingly affected.
Many types of complications can land patients with eating disorders in the hospital, including kidney problems, anemia, and heart-rhythm disturbances.
In rare cases, patients even suffered life-threatening conditions such as total kidney or liver failure.
Anorexia and bulimia together accounted for more than half of the diagnoses, but they are not behind the rise in hospitalizations.
Read in full here.
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