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Lose Weight.... The Deadly Way...
Across the obesity-ridden United States thousands of people experiment with quick fix, dangerous weight loss methods.
Not knowing what is dangerous is one of the reasons why people die from unhealthy ways to lose weight. Across the obesity-ridden United States thousands of people experiment with quick fix, dangerous weight loss methods. ... more -
'Dangerously thin' climbers face ban
There are concerns that a number of rock climbing athletes are shedding unhealthy amounts of weight in order to gain a competitive edge, and could be more prone to eating disorders, reports the Independent today.
In endurance climbing, where every spare gram of unwanted weight could sap valuable energy during a climb, there are fears that female athletes in particular may be prone to dangerous eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.
In Austria, the problem has become so acute that the country's climbing federation has banned any dangerously underweight athletes from competing until they put on an adequate amount of weight. Those athletes with a body mass index (BMI) reading of less than 17 when the rules are introduced next year will not be allowed to compete. Until then, those on the borderline have been ordered to see a doctor for advice about the effects of low weight and anorexia.
Earlier this month, Jens Larssen, who runs 8a, the world ranking organisation for rock climbing, announced his system might also introduce some sort of regulation. "I know for a fact that some of the very best female climbers are either anorexic or have been anorexic," he said. "It exists just as much at the top level of climbers as anywhere else. I know many of these people personally; they're my good friends but I don't want them to become role models."
Should governments or regulatory bodies be able to limit who takes part in sport, based on their body shape or size? Do other sports that require tiny, thin bodies take the same action? Do other sports lead to competitors developing eating disorders in this way? Is this a telling example of where eating disorders come from in the first place: simple competition amongst women and men to have the 'ideal' body?
There are concerns that a number of rock climbing athletes are shedding unhealthy amounts of weight in order to gain a competitive edg... more -
Accountant for Rachael Ray show claims anorexia bias
NEW YORK (AP) -- A former accountant for Rachael Ray's TV cooking show has filed a $1 million lawsuit saying he was forced out of his job because he has an eating disorder.
Aaron Ferguson says in papers filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court that he has suffered from anorexia for about six years. He says his supervisor repeatedly exhibited "hostile behavior" and made "vile," discriminatory and hurtful comments.
The comments included, "Anorexics are sick in the head," and, "Anorexics should not be able to work," his court papers say.
Ferguson's lawyer, William H. Kaiser, said Thursday, "The things that were said in front of my client were hurtful, and once they knew he had a problem with it they should have stopped."
Ferguson says he repeatedly complained about his supervisor's use, in his presence, of discriminatory language regarding anorexics but their superiors did nothing that improved his situation.
Ferguson said he began working in July 2007 for CBS Television Distributions Inc., a CBS Corp. unit and the producer and owner of the "Rachael Ray" show. After he complained about his treatment, he says, he was forced out in October 2007.
Kaiser said the firing was retaliation: "He was punished for complaining."
The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday, names CBS Corp., CBSTD Inc. and three employees of the show as defendants. Ray is not named as a defendant.
A CBS spokesman referred calls to show spokeswoman Lauren Nowell, who said she could not comment on pending litigation.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A former accountant for Rachael Ray's TV cooking show has filed a $1 million lawsuit saying he was forced out of his ... more -
Anorexia 'overlooked in boys'
Disorders such as anorexia are much more common in girls - only one in ten diagnosed cases are in boys.
Almost half of all child mental health experts asked by the BBC said they felt that more boys were coming forward with the problem.
However, they said that GPs and parents were missing vital clues that boys had developed an eating disorder. Disorders such as anorexia are much more common in girls - only one in ten diagnosed cases are in boys. ... more -
Girls want to be anorexic
"Some teenagers think "if they become thin, or get an eating disorder, they will be popular," said Kreipe, the medical director at the Western New York Comprehensive Care Center for Eating Disorders in Rochester.
While Kreipe had seen this phenomenon before, only recently has it acquired a name: wannarexia.
Most commonly found among teenage girls, wannarexia is a label describing those who claim to have anorexia, or wish they did. While wannarexia hasn't been studied, experts say a growing number of girls have a misguided desire to be anorexic to gain popularity or to lose weight." "Some teenagers think "if they become thin, or get an eating disorder, they will be popular," said Kreipe, the medical director at the... more -
Fighting back against ultra-skinny lies
There's nothing new about TV and fashion magazines giving girls unhealthy ideas about how thin they need to be in order to be considered beautiful. What is surprising is the method psychologists at the University of Texas have come up with to keep girls from developing eating disorders. Their main weapon against super skinny (role) models: a brand of civil disobedience dubbed "body activism."
Since 2001, more than 1,000 high school and college students have participated in the Body Project, which works by getting girls to understand how they have been buying into the notion that you have to be thin to be happy or successful. After critiquing the so-called thin ideal by writing essays and role-playing with their peers, participants are directed to come up with and execute small, nonviolent acts. They include slipping notes saying "Love your body the way it is" into dieting books at stores like Borders and writing letters to Mattel, makers of the impossibly proportioned Barbie doll.
According to a study in the latest issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the risk of developing eating disorders was reduced 61% among Body Project participants. And they continued to exhibit positive body-image attitudes as long as three years after completing the program, which consists of four one-hour sessions. Such lasting effects may be due to girls' realizing not only how they were being influenced but also who was benefiting from the societal pressure to be thin. "These people who promote the perfect body really don't care about you at all," says Kelsey Hertel, a high school junior and Body Project veteran in Eugene, Ore. "They purposefully make you feel like less of a person so you'll buy their stuff and they'll make money."
As part of the program, Hertel and a friend posted signs in a school bathroom saying YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. DON'T BE SOMEONE THAT YOU'RE NOT. BE YOURSELF. The girls then watched their classmates react. "They'd see the signs and say things like 'That's encouraging because I always feel so fat and gross and ugly,'" Hertel says. The study's lead author, Eric Stice, designed the Body Project betting that a crucial element in preventing eating disorders lay in getting a participant to critique a fashion ad or other negative influence in front of her peers. "If I write down 10 things bad about it and post it on MySpace so anyone can view it, I'm accountable for it," says Stice, now at the Oregon Research Institute.
Psychologists are excited about his study because there's not a lot of other data measuring the effectiveness of such programs, let alone their long-term impact.
"This is a good start," says Dr. Walter Kaye, a board member of the National Eating Disorders Association. But Kaye cautions that eating disorders are much more complicated than researchers first thought. For starters, the disorders can't be blamed solely on environmental factors. Brain-scan studies show that the neural circuitry that normally responds to the pleasurable, rewarding aspects of eating doesn't seem to work in anorexics.
The Body Project study, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, recruited participants by distributing flyers outside classrooms and posting them in school bathrooms. Now sororities and other groups are beginning to launch peer-administered versions of the program. But even if one is not available in your community, there are things parents can do to help with body-image issues. Be aware of what signals you might be giving your children when you talk about your own desire to lose weight. Pay attention to the stereotypical body image your kids are watching on TV. And perhaps most important, talk with them about it.
Sanjay Gupta's Fit Nation series airs on House Call on CNN, Saturdays and Sundays, at 8:30 a.m. E.T.
—With reporting by Shahreen Abedin There's nothing new about TV and fashion magazines giving girls unhealthy ideas about how thin they need to be in order to be consider... more -
Should the French make it illegal to encourage anorexia?
Is the answer regulation or education?
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France takes up body image law
Wow some of these chicks need to eat! Maybe this law will help.
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France takes up body image law
PARIS - The French parliament's lower house adopted a groundbreaking bill Tuesday that would make it illegal for anyone — including fashion magazines, advertisers and Web sites — to publicly incite extreme thinness.
The National Assembly approved the bill in a series of votes Tuesday, after the legislation won unanimous support from the ruling conservative UMP party. It goes to the Senate in the coming weeks.
Fashion industry experts said that, if passed, the law would be the strongest of its kind anywhere. Leaders in French couture are opposed to the idea of legal boundaries on beauty standards.
The bill was the latest and strongest of measures proposed after the 2006 anorexia-linked death of a Brazilian model prompted efforts throughout the international fashion industry to address the repercussions of using ultra-thin models.
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Boyer said she was focusing on women's health, though the bill applies to models of both sexes. The French Health Ministry says most of the 30,000 to 40,000 people with anorexia in France are women.
Didier Grumbach, president of the influential French Federation of Couture, said he was not aware how broad the proposed legislation was, and made no secret of his strong disapproval of such a sweeping measure.
"Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny," he said. "That doesn't exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France."
Marleen S. Williams, a psychology professor at Brigham Young University in Utah who researches the media's effect on anorexic women, said it was nearly impossible to prove that the media causes eating disorders.
Williams said studies show fewer eating disorders in "cultures that value full-bodied women." Yet with the new French legal initiative, she fears, "you're putting your finger in one hole in the dike, but there are other holes, and it's much more complex than that." PARIS - The French parliament's lower house adopted a groundbreaking bill Tuesday that would make it illegal for anyone — including fa... more -
Eating disorder websites declared a health hazard
Websites that offer forums for people with anorexia and advocate extreme weight loss can be very dangerous, says psychology professor Michael Levine, but banning them won't cure anyone of an eating disorder.
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Baby born to near-death anorexic girl
Five years ago, weighing just 5st 1lb, Hayley Wilde was told by doctors she had only days left to live.
So sick her hair fell out, the skeletal teenager, who had suffered from anorexia since she was 11, was hospitalised and brought back from the brink.
But it was not the end.
Over the next three-and-a-half years, the teenager from Blackpool was hospitalised five times.
At her lowest ebb, she was fed through an intravenous tube. In 2005, she spent just seven weeks out of hospital.
But in March this year, Hayley - now 20 - defied the odds by giving birth to a healthy baby boy. Five years ago, weighing just 5st 1lb, Hayley Wilde was told by doctors she had only days left to live. ... more -
Sweet Valley High returns...minus a few dress sizes
I know I can't be the only girl who remembers the Sweet Valley High books. Well, they're coming back, but there are a few changes, including the fact that the Wakefield twins are now a "perfect size four" instead of a "perfect size six." Because nothing says great young adult literature like promoting anorexia. I know I can't be the only girl who remembers the Sweet Valley High books. Well, they're coming back, but there are a few changes, inc... more
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Italy to launch anti-anorexia campaign targeting schools
Rome, Mar 26 : Italian authorities will launch a campaign to counter a growing epidemic of anorexia and other eating disorders in a country known for its fashion industry and the “Bella Figura.”
The Italian ministries of Health and Sports are targeting the project worth USD 1.54 mn on schools and the media, providing guidelines for magazines, television, radio and internet sites to discourage ultra-thin beauty ideals.
Anorexic individuals starve themselves voluntarily to control body weight.
The project, which begins next month, will also provide training for dance instructors and coaches of such sports as gymnastic and swimming and it will include a website to encourage teens to discuss healthy eating habits and to counter websites where anorexics share tips in starving themselves.
“Aorexia and Bulimia are diseases that have not been recognised for many years as such. It was sort of a veil of unspoken and unrecognised problems,” said Giovanna Melandri, the minister for Young People and Sports.
“So what we really needed to do was to take away the veil to make sure young people, young girls and young boys, know that they can die,” she told reporters. Rome, Mar 26 : Italian authorities will launch a campaign to counter a growing epidemic of anorexia and other eating disorders in a co... more -
"Miss Bimbo" site causes outrage
A website that encourages girls as young as 9 to embrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting in the search for the perfect figure was condemned as lethal by parents’ groups and healthcare experts yesterday.
The Miss Bimbo internet game has attracted prepubescent girls who are told to buy their virtual characters breast enlargement surgery and to keep them “waif thin” with diet pills.
Healthcare professionals, a parents’ group and an organisation representing people suffering anorexia and bulimia criticised the website for sending a dangerous message to impressionable children. A website that encourages girls as young as 9 to embrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting in the search for the perfect figure was ... more -
The incredible shrinking bride
Today's bride-to-be "wants everything to be perfect," says Heidi Allen,"They want their hair, nails and makeup all professionally done. They want a beautiful dress. And I hear from their mothers that they are almost all obsessed with their weight." Many customers order their dresses a size or two smaller than what they currently wear, she says, because they're determined to be thinner by the big day. Some go much further than that. "I've had to send some brides who ordered a size 12 to get alternations to make their dress a size 20," Allen says. "Luckily, I know a seamstress who's a miracle worker. But it's absolutely ridiculous, the denial I see in the salon." Ironically, she says, it's often the women with the least to lose who lose the most. "A lot of thin girls get obsessed with being even thinner," she says, "and end up coming in for their fittings looking like a rack of bones."
Today's bride-to-be "wants everything to be perfect," says Heidi Allen,"They want their hair, nails and makeup all professionally done... more -
The skinny on health insurance and social networking
Certain women have been denied health insurance by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield because of online writings and posts pointing to “emotional” causes of disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.
But why would this matter whether it was emotionally or biologically based? Here’s the catch:
The insurer is only required to pay for illnesses that are biologically based, so they are attempting to prove through Facebook, Myspace, etc. that the reasons behind them are purely emotional.
Certain women have been denied health insurance by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield because of online writings and posts pointing to “em... more -
You Can't Catch Anorexia From Looking At Skinny Models
"Anorexia may be caused by inherited differences in the way a sufferer?s brain operates, leading to obsessive behaviour, according to research.
Rather than being triggered by images of super-thin models and celebrities, the eating disorder could be brought on by the in-built way in which the brain responds to pleasure and reward. It has been argued that images of unhealthily thin stars in the media have encouraged anorexic behaviour in impressionable young women. But a study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that the brains of anorexia sufferers behave differently to those of the rest of the population and that certain people are born with a susceptibility to develop the condition."
So maybe certain people are wired to put them at higher risk. And force-feeding them images of skinny models is not going to improve matters. Recognizing these biological differences is important, but it doesn't mean that it's ok to promote dangerously low body weight. Such images may not 'cause' anorexia, but I would argue that they certainly influence warped body image even in 'normal' girls. "Anorexia may be caused by inherited differences in the way a sufferer?s brain operates, leading to obsessive behaviour, according to ... more -
A 6-Week Journey to the Land of Thin
Most women aren't naturally slim. But that doesn't stop many of them from keeping that way (take a look through any fashion mag or celebrity red carpet and you know what I mean). So what does it take a normal girl to be a size 0? Check out this personal account from a reporter who put her body, mind and soul to the test... with less than appealing consequences.
"Even though my head was a mess my female friends all thought I looked great when I was at my thinnest. The cult of thin is a powerful one and, truth be told..."
I'm not sure I would participate in something like this in the name of work. In fact, I can't believe it was given the ok by her boss. t's just setting up for a downward spiral into madness. I don't think they would support a 6-week journey to the land of alcoholism or drug abuse. Why was anorexia and bulimia supported? Yikes. Most women aren't naturally slim. But that doesn't stop many of them from keeping that way (take a look through any fashion mag or cel... more -
Womb hormones 'lead to anorexia'
Women are usually much more likely than men to have the eating disorder, but a University of Sussex study found men with a female twin were more at risk.
This suggests the hormones released to aid female development may be key.
Commenting on the Archives of General Psychiatry study, a UK expert said other factors in childhood and adolescence remained important.
A plausible explanation for this phenomenon is that in pregnancies bearing a female foetus, a substance is produced, probably hormonal, that increases the risk of having anorexia nervosa in adulthood
It is estimated that up to 90,000 people will be receiving treatment for eating disorders in the UK at any one time, with many other cases going undiagnosed.
No-one is sure why women are more prone than men. Some experts suggest that the pressures of modern society are partly to blame while others look at brain changes much earlier in life.
Research into twins is a way to examine the factors involved, as the single most important period for brain development is during the months of pregnancy.
Dr Marco Procopio, from the University of Sussex, worked with Dr Paul Marriott from the University of Waterloo in Canada to look at information drawn from thousands of Swedish twins born between 1935 and 1958.
Overall, as expected, female twins were more likely to develop anorexia than male twins.
The only exception was among mixed-sex twins, where the male was as likely to develop anorexia as the female.
The researchers wrote that the most likely reason was because of sex steroid hormones released into the womb during pregnancy.
"A plausible explanation for this phenomenon is that in pregnancies bearing a female foetus, a substance is produced, probably hormonal, that increases the risk of having anorexia nervosa in adulthood.
"Because the male half of an opposite-sex twin pair would also be exposed to this substance, it could account for the observed elevated risk in males with female twins."
Susan Ringwood, from the Eating Disorders Association, said: "There is a lot of research now into the effects of hormones on brain development.
"This is an interesting study, although it's important that we also look at other factors such as perception of body-image in childhood and adolescence."
Women are usually much more likely than men to have the eating disorder, but a University of Sussex study found men with a female twin... more -
Does the Media Really Promote Positive Body Image?
Access Hollywood has declared November _Body Image_ Month, but the topics covered may not be promoting a positive body image. Is Access Hollywood really helping Americans overcome their obsession weight? Does handing out tips on speedy weight lost really help young people feel better about themselves.
What do you think?
How does Media tackle body image issues such as weight, race, and age? Access Hollywood has declared November _Body Image_ Month, but the topics covered may not be promoting a positive body image. Is Acces... more
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Anorexia
