A recent article in The Guardian by Joanna Moorhead covers the story of Katie Green, who's recent book "Lighter Than My Shadow" is set to be published this October 3rd, 2013 by Jonathan Cape. Lighter Than My Shadow is a hand-drawn story of Katie's struggle and recovery from her eating disorder.
Here is an exerpt from The Guardian...
Katie Green isn't sure how significant her family's attitude to food was in the development of her eating disorder, but her autobiographical graphic novel opens with an image of them all sitting around the kitchen table. It's dinner time: Dad is reading the paper, Mum is feeding the toddler, and the young Katie is staring glumly at her plate of food, fork in hand.
Over the following pages, Katie's anorexia develops, characterised in her pictures by a thick black cloud of scribbles above her head. And when we see the family round their kitchen table once more, the daughters now in their teens, the thick black cloud is gathered above them all, casting its gloom across the whole family. Katie still isn't eating; and no one else looks happy either.
This, says Katie, is very much how it felt to have an eating disorder. "It affected everyone in the family," she says. But although everyone was right there under Katie's cloud, no one could understand it. They did their best: the pictures show her parents asking her to try to eat. "Can't you just manage a little bit?" asks her mum, hopefully. Katie explodes – "You just don't get it, do you?" – before rushing off in tears.
The truth, as Katie now realises, is that she didn't understand any more than her parents did. All she knew was that a black cloud of enveloping misery had descended on them all. She is full of admiration for the way her parents and sister coped: "It must have been terrible, seeing me basically trying to self-destruct."
At her worst, Katie needed round-the-clock surveillance to stop her from purging and self-harming. Her parents chose to have her treated at home as a specialist told them that the outcomes were better; both had to take leave from their jobs to care for her. They paid a high price: in the book, Katie suggests it would have been better for the family if she'd been hospitalised.
Katie is now 30 and recently moved to Plymouth, which is where we meet. Her graphic novel is published next week and a second book for children, The Crystal Mirror, is due out later this year. She doesn't think about food all the time now, but says you never really escape the mindset. She channels the behaviour that once fuelled her eating disorder into healthier pursuits – especially trying to work out what it was all about, through her novel.
What that means, explains Katie, is that she worked on it compulsively, pushing herself to get the hundreds of illustrations finished for the deadline, and obsessing about it for three years. Interestingly, the fruit of her labours is a whacking 504 pages long – it can't be by chance that this story of how a person almost wasted away to nothing is one of the heaviest books you're ever likely to read. The physical lightness of an anorexic body sits in stark contrast to the emotional weight that invariably surrounds it – although Katie seems unsure about whether the condition is caused by external or internal forces.
She coped by thinking of it as a disease, like cancer, or the result of an accident, like a broken leg. She's in a much better place now than during the period described in the book – although, surprisingly, she says that writing it was not cathartic. She had managed to move on from thinking about food and all the issues involved in her condition, and the project pulled her back into it. But it will have been worth it, she says, if it helps other families to cope with the complexity of living with a teenager with an eating disorder. "When I started reading books about anorexia, I was disappointed – they either seemed overly optimistic about how easy it would be to move on or suggested you would have it for ever. Neither of those points of view seemed correct to me."
Read full article here...
Buy the book here...
Website for "Ligher Than My Shadow"
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Fairwinds Treatment Center helps individuals and their families get their lives back on track. We specialize in helping people overcome dangerous and deadly disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism and drug addiction. Being a dually licensed psychiatric facility, Fairwinds physicians and therapists engage an integrated treatment plan, incorporating several treatment models combined with psychiatric methods to identify the root of the disorder in order for specialized treatment to begin and to ensure a lasting recovery.
Author Jenni Schaefer, along with Jennifer J. Thomas, Ph.D has just realsed a new book with Harvard Health Publications called "Almost Anorexic: Is My (or My Loved One's) Relationship with Food a Problem?". The Today show covered the book and interviewed Jenni and Jennifer August, 22 2013. Here is the video:
Here is a little information from Jenni's website about this helpful book:
While 1 in 200 adults have experienced full-blown anorexia, at least 1 in 20 (1 in 10 teen girls!) have exhibited some key symptoms of anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder. Many suffer from the effects but never address the issue because they don’t fully meet the diagnostic criteria. If this is the case for you, then you may be “almost anorexic.” Drawing on case studies and the latest research, Almost Anorexic combines a psychologist’s clinical experience with a patient’s personal recovery story to help readers understand and overcome almost anorexia.
- Determine if your (or your loved one’s) relationship with food is a problem
- Gain insight on how to intervene with a loved one
- Discover scientifically proven strategies to change unhealthy eating patterns
- Learn when and how to get professional help when it’s needed
'Almost Anorexic: Is My (or My Loved One's) Relationship with Food a Problem? (The Almost Effect)' is available at most major book stores as well as Amazon, here.
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If you or a loved one feel you have issues with food, weight and/or body image, it is extremely important to discuss this with a qualified specialist as early as possible.
Fairwinds Treatment Center helps individuals and their families get their lives back on track. We specialize in helping people overcome dangerous and deadly disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism and drug addiction. Being a dually licensed psychiatric facility, Fairwinds physicians and therapists engage an integrated treatment plan, incorporating several treatment models combined with psychiatric methods to identify the root of the disorder in order for specialized treatment to begin and to ensure a lasting recovery.
The Eating Disorders Review recently send out this review of ICED in Montreal. A very insightful look at how necessary it is to consider all variebles leading up to and including the treatment of a patient struggling with an eating disorder.
A few key topics highlighted below:
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A Transdisgnostic Approach
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Emotions Role in Eating Disorders
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Men with Eating Disorders
Reprinted from Eating Disorders Review
July/August Volume 24, Number 4
©2013 Gürze Books
Taking a New Look at Old Boundaries in Eating Disorders
The International Conference on Eating Disorders (ICED) in May offered a program filled with practical and research-oriented presentations. Following this year’s theme, “Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries in Eating Disorders,” sessions included a keynote address reminding the audience about the challenges of overlap and similarities among eating disorders, a look at how emotions can drive eating disorders, and an analysis of why male patients are so infrequently involved in eating disorders treatment.
Developing a Transdiagnostic Approach
In his keynote address, David Barlow, PhD, ABPP, professor of psychology and psychiatry, and founder and director emeritus of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University, told audience members that a transdiagnostic approach to psychiatric and psychologic disorders is slowly but surely developing.
“We have thousands of protocols,” Dr. Barlow noted, adding that the “time has passed for one protocol after another with only a slight twist.” There is no way that such an approach can ultimately be useful, he said. At the present time there may be effective treatment but there is plenty of room for improvement, he said, adding that there are still too many protocols and manuals, and these protocols are still relatively complex, which interferes with effective dissemination.
He also pointed to work by Dr. Chris Fairburn and colleagues a decade ago, which marked the beginnings of taking a transdiagnostic approach to eating disorders. By honing in on overvaluation of shape and weight and control, the researchers hypothesized that the remaining disorders follow this same pattern. Research on the comorbidity of anxiety with bulimia nervosa is another example. Various researchers showed a high comorbidity rate of anxiety with bulimia nervosa.
Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a characteristic predominantly associated with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD); however, emerging evidence indicates that IU may be a shared element of emotional disorders, Dr. Barlow said. He explained that a synergy of several types of vulnerabilities leads to stress, and in turn to generalized anxiety, and depression. It is thought that the vulnerabilities come together, perhaps triggered by stress, to find their phenotypical outlet as anxiety and/or depression, the flip side of generalized anxiety, he said. Dr. Barlow said that emotions are not meant to be suppressed; instead, they are present to motivate us to engage in certain behaviors. If the vulnerability is not present, mood recovers naturally and more quickly in response to stress, he said.
Dr. Barlow also shared a unified protocol approach illustrating the principal of transdiagnostic unified treatment for anxiety. This approach features eight treatment modules, including: motivation enhancement for treatment engagement; psychoeducation and treatment rationale; emotional awareness training; cognitive appraisal and reappraisal; interoceptive awareness and tolerance; situational exposures; and relapse prevention.
Dr. Barlow also addressed a question about the interdependence between biological vulnerability and psychological vulnerability. Splitting apart biological and psychological vulnerability does have empirical support, he said because there are recognizable differences in the brain. The fact that specific brain circuits are activated is an argument for keeping disorders separate, as in the case of obsessive-compulsive disorders. However, he added, his group wonders if these vulnerabilities are continually influencing each other.
Emotion’s Role in Eating Disorders
In a plenary session, Steve Wonderlich, PhD, Director of Clinical Research at the Neuropsychiatric Institute, Fargo, ND, said that the study of emotion may be very important to the diagnosis and treatment of persons with eating disorders. The role of emotion in eating disorders is still being debated, and “emotion” is a slippery term, Dr. Wonderlich said. Very significant questions have to do with the possible functional relationship between emotion and eating disorder behaviors. Do emotions precipitate or modulate disordered eating behaviors?
Dr. Wonderlich, a Past President of the Academy for Eating Disorders and a member of the EDR Editorial Advisory Board, described a technique, ecological momentary assessment (EMA), that his group and others have used to collect data about patients in a real-world environment. Patients use a handheld computer or a cell phone to record current states, events, and emotions and thus are able to record events as they occur.
To gain a richer view of a patient’s life, the device signals the patient to record their behavior and emotions 6 to 10 times a day. Thus binges, components of meals, and emotions can be recorded at or near the time they occur. According to Dr. Wonderlich, the real beauty of such devices is that the connection between emotion and behavior can be studied at a very precise point in time, which will help establish whether emotions are driving the behavior, or vice versa. This method also establishes a record of emotions and behaviors for longitudinal study. In a 2007 study of 131 adult female volunteers diagnosed with DSM-IV criteria for BN, 90% of the time patients responded within 45 minutes or less. Other researchers who examined the trajectories of emotion before and following the bulimic behavior found that during the 6 hours before a binge episode, a steady increase in negative affect occurred, and culminated in a binge.
Do different emotions have specific relationships to bulimic behavior? Dr. Wonderlich also briefly described the work of Dr. Kelly C. Berg et al., who explored the connection between four negative emotions--guilt, fear, sadness, and hostility-- and bulimic behavior. Guilt was linked to the highest degree of negative affect, and was significantly associated with binge eating; this was not the case with the other emotions. Another question concerned individual differences, and whether certain characteristics of people with specific forms of disordered eating made them more vulnerable to behaviors triggered by negative affect. Increasing evidence suggests that negative emotional states may play a role in precipitating eating disorders behavior across diagnoses, he said.
What are the implications for treatment? Some implications for treatment include:
- Consider treatments that directly reduce the intensity of emotion (example, psychotropic drugs).
- Promote more adaptive regulation of high-risk emotion moments. This may be accomplished by targeting events that increase negative affect in persons with eating disorders and\or to enhance their ability to clarify, accept, and tolerate negative affect states (distress tolerance), and...
- Promote inhibition of impulsive behavior, especially in times of heightened negative affect.
Does it matter if the eating disorder behavior reduces the negative affect or produces negative reinforcement? Dr. Wonderlich quoted B. F. Skinner, who said, “Although antecedent conditions help to establish a behavior, consequences maintain it.” However, Dr. Wonderlich asked, if this is true, why does a person who pursues low weight engage in behaviors such as binge-eating, which directly interfere with attaining the goal of low weight? Biologically induced binge eating counteracts a physiological state connected with starving, as Ancel Keys noted.
Binge eating and other disordered eating behaviors are maintained because they help the person escape from or avoid the precipitating negative emotional states. If eating disorder behaviors actually function to reduce/avoid a negative emotional state, clinicians have two treatment options, he said. The first would be to identify and help patients develop alternative behaviors that promote the same emotional reward; the second option would be extinction of the behavior.
He described a 2008 study evaluating extinction as a functional treatment for binge eating (Behavior Modification 2008; 32:556). Dr. Ray Miltenberger and colleagues at the University of South Florida trained bulimic patients first in the lab and then at home. Patients listened to a tape recording they had made after a previous binge, one that made them feel badly about the binge. As a result, some of the trainees became abstinent and remained so, Dr. Wonderlich said. He also cited a very recent paper by Dr. Tim Walsh and colleagues that described AN as a well-entrenched habit and reported that with habit acquisition, rather than reward, the brain shifts. Thus, habit formation appears to be critical to the persistence of the dieting behavior. (Am J Psychiatry. 2013; 170:477-484. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12081074 ).
Finally, Dr. Wonderlich offered several conclusions about emotion and eating disorders. First, emotion variables and eating disorder behaviors co-vary at a momentary level. Next, antecedent emotional states may be meaningful clinical targets for eating disorders treatment, but the impact of eating disorder behaviors on emotional states still needs much study. Finally, he noted that eating disorder treatment interventions may benefit from a greater focus on specific situations, affects and actions that occur in a momentary timeframe and promote conditioning or reinforcement that perpetuates eating disorder behaviors.
Where Are All the Men?
Men face a number of barriers to obtaining treatment, according to two clinicians who specialize in treating men with eating disorders. In a special plenary session on eating disorders in men, Roberto Olivardia, PhD, and Mark Warren, MD, PhD, FAED, explored some of the reasons that men with eating disorders are often overlooked or never seek treatment.
First, there is a misperception that only women have eating disorders. According to Dr. Olivardia, clinical instructor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and co-author of one of the first books to deal with eating disorders in men, The Adonis Complex, there is a wide misperception that eating disorders only affect women; another misperception is that eating disorders affect only gay men. Sexual orientation can be a huge issue, he said, noting that shame and secrecy also keep many young men from seeking help for an eating disorder. Gay men are more likely to discuss their disorders with peers, while heterosexual men are far more secretive, and even their spouses are often unaware of the problem.
When men do seek help, they may find themselves in treatment centers that cater to women, and they may have problems dealing with a female physician as well. And, since so many treatment centers cater primarily to women, treatment may not be available for men, even if they do want help.
Dr. Olivardia noted that eating disorders can appear in boys as young as 9 or 10, and disorders very often focus on muscle mass rather than with weight alone. They may see themselves as too thin and scrawny, and seek anabolic steroids to “bulk up.” Just as with women, cultural influences are powerful-- muscularity is seen as a core element of masculinity, dominance, and attractiveness. For example, in the 1980s, a shift in the movies occurred at which time bigger bodies became important commodities and important currency; this was accompanied by an explosion of “muscle magazines,” men’s fitness magazines, and even video games stressing male bulk. He pointed to an extreme example of newer action figures, wherein even Star Wars action figures were re-mastered to be much more muscular. It is estimated that from 4 to 6 million males are affected, and the onset of these disorders is around the time of puberty. He added that much more data are needed about incidence, race, and socioeconomic status.
Men are less likely to seek treatment because of shame about having what is “a female disorder,” according to Dr. Olivardia. Males with eating disorders are often self-conscious and find themselves in settings with few other male patients. The good news is that once these men get into treatment, they do as well if not better than do women, he said.
Men need to be included in the conversation about eating disorders. Dr. Warren, Medical Director of the Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders, traced the history of eating disorders in men, noting that the first two reported cases of anorexia nervosa involved one female and one male. Our culture focuses on gender, food, and bodies, he said. For example, even the story of Adam and Even featured nakedness and food and how genders are affected. He added that men have been excluded from the current narrative of eating disorders because the criteria, screening tools, and treatment have all been based upon the histories of women patients. He added, “For men to be included in the conversation, we have made many attempts to distinguish how eating disorders are different in men. We need to accept that men have eating disorders and then to find how biology and genetics exist to present a different clinical picture in men.”
Dr. Warren also said that there are compelling reasons to improve studies of eating disorders in men; these problems are serious, potentially life-threatening conditions that are extremely challenging to diagnose and treat and they are increasing. He praised Dr. Arnold Andersen, a longtime member of EDR’s Editorial Board, for his pioneering work in the treatment of men with eating disorders. Dr Warren also shared with the audience that he himself had anorexia nervosa in his teens and knew nothing about the disease at the time. He said that his recovery was a matter of luck and that even now most men recover as a matter of luck rather than as a result of clear diagnosis and treatment. Men started “disappearing from the equation when the focus turned to amenorrhea and “hysteria,” neither of which applied to men. In the late 1970s, Dr. Gerald Russell’s work on bulimia brought men back into the eating disorders world, Dr. Warren said. However, even today most research articles are written exclusively about women, he said, showing that we have not progressed in the way we might want to.
What else can be done? Dr. Warren told the audience that one positive step in the future would be to always include men in every eating disorders study. Clinicians can also ask themselves what it is like to be a man with an eating disorder. In most treatment centers, male patients only see women patients, and a woman clinician typically asks a male patient to discuss his body, feeding, and intake. He added that most males are asked if they are gay before they are asked if they are afraid their illness will kill them.
Shame is such a powerful emotion, he said, which keeps men with eating disorders from seeking help. Health care providers can be more mindful and sensitive to eating disorders in males. They can remember to ask male patients more about their body goals and use gender-neutral language. Treatment centers can be more welcoming, for example, by including men in their ads. Men also need to know about the history and sociocultural beliefs that underlie eating disorders and how culture affects us all, he said. Having a male clinician to talk with and to be validated by is also a powerful way to help a man with eating disorder feel more comfortable about seeking treatment and sticking with it. The chemistry of the treatment team is extremely important, Dr. Warren said.
Full article here...
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The following story recently ran in the L.A. Times covering the growing number of males struggling with anorexia and the added challenges they face in seeking treatment.
Excerpt...
A survey shows that L.A. male high school students are about as likely as females to use diet aids or laxatives or vomiting to lose weight. The numbers challenge old assumptions.
Bryan Piperno was just 9 years old when he began keeping his secret.
The Simi Valley youngster tossed out lunches or claimed he ate elsewhere. As he grew older, he started purging after eating. Even after his vomiting landed him in the emergency room during college, he lied to hide the truth.
Piperno, now 25, slowly fended off his eating disorder with time and care, including a stay in a residential treatment facility. But surveys show a rising number of teenage boys in Los Angeles now struggle with similar problems.
High school boys in Los Angeles are twice as likely to induce vomiting or use laxatives to control their weight as the national average, with 5.2% of those surveyed saying they had recently done so, according to the most recent survey data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Los Angeles Unified School District. They are also more likely to have used diet pills, powders or liquids than boys nationwide.
The numbers challenge old assumptions that boys are immune to a problem better known to afflict teenage girls. Girls still exceed boys in fasting to lose weight, but the latest data, from 2011, showed that Los Angeles boys were nearly as likely as girls to purge through vomiting or laxatives. They were also as likely as girls to use diet pills, powders or liquids without the advice of a doctor — 6.2% said they recently used such substances, compared with 6.1% of girls.
Some experts say boys are starting to face the pressures long placed on girls, as buff, bare men proliferate in pop culture. Boys today watch Channing Tatum strip as "Magic Mike" or weigh themselves against the muscular Dwayne Johnson. The nonstop chatter of Twitter and Facebook has amplified those messages, therapists say.
"Boys are growing up now with the billboard of the guy with perfect pecs and biceps," said Roberto Olivardia, a clinical instructor in the Harvard Medical School psychiatry department. "You just didn't see that years ago."
Teenage boys say abs are prized and ogled. Andrew Shrout, a 19-year-old junior at UC Berkeley, said boys felt they needed to be very lean at his former high school in Long Beach. "Men are pressured to have as little fat as possible — but you've got to pretend like you don't watch what you eat," Shrout said.
He decided to lose weight for his health but also because another guy on the water polo team used to grab his stomach and jiggle it. "I can see why a lot of younger kids get sucked into a vortex and end up doing bad things," Shrout said.
Steroid use is also on the rise among Los Angeles teen boys, the survey found, with roughly one out of 20 saying they have used steroids — only a slightly smaller percentage than those who had recently turned to diet pills, powders or liquids.
Sports can pile on more pressure. Wrestlers, for instance, often aim to lose enough weight to grapple with lighter opponents. For some competitors, throwing up or downing laxatives can be a gateway to a disorder that lasts beyond the sporting event, said Dawn Theodore, clinical director of the Eating Disorder Center of California in Brentwood.
Los Angeles isn't the only city where boys have been increasingly likely to purge or turn to diet substances, with higher-than-average rates also seen in Chicago, Houston, Charlotte, N.C., and elsewhere. Government estimates show that the number of males hospitalized for eating disorders rose 53% between 1999 and 2009. Some experts say they are unsure whether more boys and men are in fact suffering such disorders or whether more are now willing to seek help.
Females remain much more likely to be hospitalized for eating disorders than boys and men, who made up 12% of such hospital stays as of four years ago, the government estimates show. However, researchers say that because men fear coming forward, the rates among males might be higher than the numbers suggest.
When they finally get help, the boys' cases "tend to be especially severe," said clinical psychologist Jennifer Henretty, who directs intensive outpatient programs at the Center for Discovery, a national system of eating disorder programs headquartered in Orange County. "People don't look until it's really out of hand."
Experts say part of the problem is that traditional methods of detecting disorders were made with girls and women in mind.
Benjamin O'Keefe, 18, remembers Googling the word "anorexia" and finding a website that said it halts menstruation. "There was nothing targeted at me," said O'Keefe, who struggled with the disorder in high school in Florida.
He exercised constantly and sometimes ate only a cheese sandwich for days at a time. He suffered massive headaches, slept incessantly and fainted onstage while rehearsing for a play.
While he weakened, "people were saying, 'Wow, you look great,' " O'Keefe remembered.
He began talking about his past struggle with anorexia upon launching a petition earlier this yearurging Abercrombie & Fitch — known for its shirtless models — to carry larger sizes.
Men who battled anorexia or bulimia as teens told The Times that other problems often drove their disorders. Piperno, the Simi Valley man, said it began as a way of exerting control over his body after suffering sexual abuse.
Matthew, a 20-year-old who faced anorexia as a teen in the Pasadena area, first avoided eating to "numb out" the alcoholism of his father and stepmother.
Read full article here...
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Fairwinds Treatment Center is a dual-diagnosis eating disorder facility. We offer personalized treatment for men and adolescent males who are struggling with anorexia nervosa. For more information or to discuss your situation, contact our admissions team at 727-447-0300 or through our website here.
Fox 4 in Kansas City, MO resently ran a story about a mother coping with the lose of her daughter following a long battle with anorexia and bulimia. The story is all to familiar for those of us involved in eating disorders and mental health. The following is an exerpt from the story.
LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. — Eating disorders are deadlier than any other mental illness. The disorders can result in heart attacks and organ failure, but there’s also a high risk of suicide.
In junior high, friends noticed that Emily Heim was going to the restroom during lunch. They were concerned she was purging. The diagnosis of bulimia came a year later. The Lee’s Summit girl received treatment, but her mom says it was never enough. Insurance limited the days Emily could spend in a treatment center.
“They get you stable and it’s like a band-aid fix, but they really don’t get at the root of the problem,” says Suzi Heim.
Behind Emily’s smile, an agonizing struggle with bulimia and also anorexia went on for seven years.
“I think she came to a point she was just really, really worn out and exhausted,” says Suzi.
Emily took her life two years ago at the age of 21. Suicide is estimated to be 23 times more common in people with an eating disorder compared to the general population.
“The pain never goes away, but you learn to cope and go on and that’s one reason why we’re doing the walk,” says Suzi.
Suzi is an organizer of the first walk in Kansas City for the National Eating Disorders Association. It will be Saturday at Berkley Riverfront Park. For details, click here.
The goal is to raise money for advocacy for better insurance coverage and earlier, more comprehensive treatment. Money also goes for the association’s helpline (1-800-931-2237) and people-to-people support.
Suzi thinks Emily’s message would be this.
“Please try to help others help themselves because I couldn’t help myself.”
A devastated mother wants others to have hope.
Here is the video from ABC affiliate KSHB Action News 41, covering the NEDA Walk Suzi is helping to organize. It's great to see coverage of these types of events in the local media.
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Fairwinds Treatment Center, located in Clearwater Florida specializes in the treatment and recovery of eating disorders, full spectrum. As the article states above, it can be difficult to get the right treatment due to insurance coverage. If you or a loved one are stuggling with an eating disorder such as anorexia and/or bulimia, contact Fairwinds Treatment Center at 727-449-0300 / 800-226-0301 or through our webiste here.
The earlier you seek treatment, the better the results and chances for a lasting recovery.
Huffington Post UK blogger and student Rhiannon Morgan just posted the following article explaining the confussion and often misrepresentation surrounding anorexia nervosa.
Below is an exerpt from the article:
Last month we witnessed Mental Health Awareness Week - a week dedicated to mental health campaigning. Like many of you, I followed all the campaigns almost religiously. However, now that it's all blown over - are things any different?
It is taking a long time, but mental health is gradually on its way to becoming less of a 'taboo topic'. This is due to the amount of effort put in by campaigners and activists. Last month it was a delight to see news reports on mental health issues, and my Twitter feed was flooded with blog posts and articles. It was fantastic seeing stigmas broke down by this new social movement. But the hard work isn't over yet.
One mental health issue facing misrepresentation and discrimination is anorexia nervosa. When portrayed in the media, anorexia sufferers are often depicted as obsessive teenage girls who made the choice themselves to stop eating, or celebrities driven to starvation through their strive for perfection. The reality is far more complex, yet the same media image continues to appear - day after day.
Myth busting
I made the mistake this week of typing in the search-term "anorexia" into an online Q&A discussion site. This particular site was based on the concept of females asking males questions, and vice versa.
Sufferers of anorexia were asking the community what they thought about the illness. Common responses? "Men like meat - not bones!", "Why do you intentionally starve yourself?", "Why do girls feel like they have to be perfect?", "Why don't you just eat?"
In about five minutes, my blood was boiling to the brim and I closed the tab. It's 2013. Why is there still a common belief that anorexia is intentional? Why do people still think that it's a choice or a decision that can be solved by choosing to eat? If it was that simple, experts wouldn't dedicate years to research, people wouldn't be dying, and sufferers would be cured by a couple of words and a pat on the back.
It is an issue close to heart, having suffered the mental torment myself. A couple of months ago, I discharged myself from a mental health ward. In hospital, I didn't have the option to starve myself, so I "just ate". But did the anorexia go away? Do I feel cured? No. It isn't a "phase", isn't a simple "hiccup", or a seasonal cold. And it is definitely not a choice.
I see the disease as a thief, robbing people of their lives - metaphysical and physical. People don't ask to be robbed.
If anorexia was a choice, like many sufferers, I would have chosen against it. I would have chosen friends, college and freedom over social isolation, growth over a weak body, and living life over facing death.
Anorexia has the highest mortality rate out of all mental illnesses. Various studies have been conducted, and most statistics show that between five and 20% of sufferers die.
The most agonizing part of recovery is weight restoration. At this point, many sufferers are unable to cope with their feelings around reaching a healthy weight, and some even try to take their own lives.
This leads to another misconception - the misconception that people have to be severely underweight to be diagnosed with an eating disorder.
Anorexia is a mental illness which is experienced, on a personal level, through intrusive thoughts and obsessive cognitions.
Personally, my mental state was at its worse at the beginning, when my BMI was in the normal range and my mind was in agony, engulfed by possessive thoughts. It felt like the GP shook everything off as a phase, and this pushed me to further restriction, and eventually physical damage.
This is why there needs to be more early intervention, and experts need to keep a look out for not just the physical symptoms, but the painful psychological ones too.
Where do we go from here?
It's about time that we stop discriminating against an illness just because it is an illness of the mind. We're currently moving forward on all forms of discrimination - women rights, racial issues, LGBT and physical disabilities. Society needs to continuing progressing; so we should add "mental illness" on to that list as well.
One thing I would like to see (and I hope you all agree) is more politicians supporting our campaigns.
Read full article here...
Fairwinds Treatment Center specializes in helping people overcome dangerous and deadly disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism and drug addiction. Being a dually licensed psychiatric facility, Fairwinds physicians and therapists engage an integrated treatment plan, incorporating several treatment models combined with psychiatric methods to identify the root of the disorder in order for specialized treatment to begin and to ensure a lasting recovery.
For more information or to discuss your situation with an admissions counselor, contact Fairwinds Treatment Center at 727-449-0300 / 800-226-0301 or through our website here.
Fairwinds Treatment Center Offers Both DAY and EVENING
Intensive Outpatient Programs for Eating Disorders
Day IOP at Clearwater location
Monday, Wednesday 9:30am - 4pm and Friday 8am -2pm
Family Nights: Thursday 4:30pm – 7:30pm
Patients will eat meals prepared and planned with our Dietician.
Evening IOP at Tampa Location
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 5pm - 8pm
Family Nights in Clearwater: Thursday 4:30pm – 7:30pm
Patients will bring their own food to this program, meals are planned with our Dietician.
IOP programs include one-one one sessions with our Psychiatrist, Dr. Pauline Powers
The program is designed for 6 weeks, but the length is based on what the individual’s needs are for treatment. Further time may be requested.
Some groups topics include:
CBT/DBT, Art Therapy, Life Skills, Medical Issues, Process Groups, Experiential Activities, Mindfulness, Family, Meal Support
Fairwinds is proud to be a Bronze Sponsor with the National Eating Disorders Association
The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) is the leading non-profit organization in the United States advocating on behalf of and supporting individuals and families affected by eating disorders. Reaching millions every year, 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.
NEDA was 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).
This article written by Sharon Stephenson for the New Zealand website Stuff.co.nz explains the work of eating disorder therapist Victoria Marsden and how eating disorders and body image issues can affect people of all ages and status.
"Marsden, who has worked with patients from age nine to their late 60s, says older women suffering from eating disorders generally fall into three categories: those whose illness has gone untreated since adolescence; those whose disorder may have gone into remission, only to resurface later in life; and those who may have developed an eating disorder in their 30s, 40s, 50s, even 60s."
Excerpt:
It was the lemon slice that did it. Biscuity layers of butter and condensed milk, swaddled in icing so sweet it could crack your teeth.
While the rest of us gobbled them down as though in the shadow of a famine, it was too much for Andrea, a former colleague. "Please stop bringing fattening food to work," she shouted, slicing through the calorific coma that made Monday mornings bearable.
"You should be ashamed of yourselves for eating such bad food." And so ended Baking Mondays.
What makes Andrea's behaviour unusual is that she isn't a 20-year-old desperate for thin thighs and a pert bottom, or an unfortunate 14-year-old trapped on the ferris wheelof anorexia. She is a 46-year-old, university educated, high-achieving, property-owning consultant.
Attractive and successful, she's the kind of woman whose good-luck thermostat has never been out of whack. Hardly the poster girl for eating disorders? You'd be surprised, says Auckland body image and eating-issue therapist Victoria Marsden.
"Most attention is given to adolescent eating issues, but they by no means discriminate by age. Eating disorders can happen to anyone at any stage of their lives," she says. Due to a lack of age-related research data on disordered eating in New Zealand, it's difficult to say if older women are the new face of eating disorders, but statistics from the United States indicate a 42 percent spike in the past five years of older women seeking treatment.
These include patients suffering from anorexia, where excessive or compulsive dieting, starvation and over-exercising can result in dramatic weight loss, as well as bulimia, which is characterised by excessive binge eating followed by purging with vomiting or laxatives.
Marsden, who has worked with patients from age nine to their late 60s, says older women suffering from eating disorders generally fall into three categories: those whose illness has gone untreated since adolescence; those whose disorder may have gone into remission, only to resurface later in life; and those who may have developed an eating disorder in their 30s, 40s, 50s, even 60s.
Blame life's major and often unexpected events - divorce, redundancy, illness, retirement and empty nest syndrome, among others - for propping open the door for middle-age eating disorders. "As women get older, they tend to be loaded with responsibilities - raising children, paying off a mortgage, caring for ageing parents - as well as having to navigate some of life's big career and relationship changes. Society assumes that by 40, a woman should have her life sorted, she should be so busy caring for family, working and running a home that she shouldn't have the time or energy to worry about how much she's eating or how slim she looks," says Marsden.
But while women may not be able to control what's going on around them, they can control what goes into their mouths. Wellington-based Andrea has spent more than 30 years doing this. "I've struggled with weight and food issues since I was 13. I believe that if I can control my eating, then I can control my life. The minute stress hits me, my first thought is, how can I restrict my food intake?"
At her worst, Andrea survived on less than 500 calories a day. "Some days I would eat only 30 grapes. A blow-out day would be a cup of plain pasta or a Diet Coke." If she tried to eat more, Andrea's stomach would clench until she vomited. Her periods stopped and she couldn't brush her hair without losing clumps of it. At one stage Andrea's elderly labrador weighed almost as much as she did.
However, turning 40 proved somewhat of a lifeline: Andrea paid off her mortgage, landed her dream job and let go of some of what she calls her "craziness about kai". "For the first time in my life I was able to go to restaurants and eat, rather than just pushing the food around my plate. I felt normal."
But six months ago, the trifecta of a high-pressure career, unrelenting perfectionist tendencies and the death of her father pushed Andrea "back down the road of previous coping strategies".
"At a certain point, you cross that line and can't stop what you're doing. Sometimes it feels as though this illness owns me.''
One of the biggest culprits of disordered eating for women - and men - of all ages is society's obsession with body image. On any given day, around 60 percent of women are on a diet.The weight-worry gun is loaded early: in New Zealand, it's estimated as many as 10 percent of adolescent girls go through a mild phase of anorexia. And it would appear that there is no age at which we learn to love our bodies: an Austrian study of 475 women aged 60 to 70 years revealed that 60 percent were dissatisfied with their bodies, while four percent were diagnosed with an eating disorder.
Here in New Zealand, Weight Watchers reports 13,000 members over 40, with their oldest member being 79 years old. Marsden says that the necessity to maintain a certainweight is particularly critical if a woman's identity and self-esteem is wrapped up in her appearance.
"This may lead her to seek a thin, youthful body through unhealthy behaviours, such as food restriction, diet pills, extreme exercise, drugs, laxatives or purging." Throw in the weight gain caused by hormonal fluctuations in menopause and the stage is set for eating disorders.
Jenna was 38 when she first stuck a finger down her throat. "The feeling of wanting to be slim doesn't go away just because you get older," she says. When her husband of 10 years announced he was leaving her for a younger woman, his parting words included an insult about her weight.
Read full article here...
Eating disorders affect people of all ages and gender. If you feel you have an unhealthy body image that controls your life and eating habits, contact Fairwinds Treatment Center to discuss your situation with one of our admissions counselors - 800-226-0301 or through our website here. You can get better. We can help.
A new law in Israel is leading the charge to protect models from eating disorders, writes Suna Senman of the Huffington Post.
At four years old, I was deliberating over whether I should be a princess or a ballet dancer when I grew up. Ultimately, I chose the latter. By my twenties, I was the stereotypical anorexic ballerina.
Ballerinas must conform with a waif-thin look to avoid getting booted out of the profession. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia compensate for the gap between reality and fantasy, and are therefore endemic to the world of ballet.
They are not, of course, confined to that world alone. Eating disorders affect 1.6million people in Britain, according to charity Beat. Of that number, 89 per cent are women.
These disorders run the gamut – anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNOS). In addition, the problem starts early. In the US, 46 per cent of girls aged nine to 11 are on diets, according to the National Eating Disorder Awareness Association (www.nedawareness.org).
Beat is unable to give an equivalent statistic for British girls but a spokesperson says: ‘We are aware children are developing problems around body image and low self-esteem at a much younger age. Daily we are bombarded with so-called “ideal” images that apparently we should all aspire to. It’s no surprise that this permeates through to young children, who are much more media-savvy and exposed to these messages than ever before. The main influence is the relentless promotion of a body ideal that is very thin. Young people compare themselves to the ideal and feel it is their fault that their bodies look so different.’
According to Adi Barkan, an Israeli fashion photographer who has worked with top modelling agencies and corporations throughout Israel and Europe, eating disorders are a direct result of images promoted in the fashion world. ‘We are the problem,’ he says simply.
Barkan broke ranks after a social worker approached him with a 15-year-old anorexic girl in tow – Keti, a 72lb (5st) wannabe model. ‘Take me to Adi,’ Keti had challenged the social worker. ‘He will tell you that I have to be this thin to be pretty.’ Deeply moved to take action after meeting Keti, Barkan subsequently went to her home four days a week, encouraging her to eat, until she was a healthy weight again.
Word got out and a national TV show invited Barkan and Keti to share their story. Immediately, anorexic girls and women across Israel called Barkan, asking him to save their lives too. Each one, Barkan recalls, repeated the refrain that they just wanted to be pretty like the women in his photos. Suddenly Barkan understood his role in contributing to poor body image and dangerous eating habits, and he decided to do something about it.
In an about-face, Barkan turned against the tide of the fashion industry and approached the ministry of health, armed with his portfolio of stick-thin women. The ministers initially refused to believe that the incidents of anorexia were high enough for alarm. But Barkan challenged them and they finally agreed to his proposal: an advert would be placed in the paper saying he was looking for a young woman to cultivate into Israel’s newest supermodel. The catch was, every woman who applied had to undergo a health screening at the ministry of health. ‘About a quarter of the women were so anorexic that they were ready to be hospitalised,’ Barkan recalls.
Read full article...
Suna Senman is a blogger for The Huffington Post.
Fairwinds Treatment Center is a dual-diagnosis eating disorder treatment facility located in Clearwater, Florida. If you or a loved one are struggling with an eating disorder such as anorexia (anorexia nervosa), it is crucial to seek treatment as soon as possible. For more information on contact out admissions team at 727-449-0300 or through our website here.
British beauty’s tragic demise sheds light on dangerous eating disorder and addiction.
This article by Tracy Miller recently ran in the New York Daily News shows how gripping an eating disorder like anorexia can be and how fast it can end a life.
Gold medal child skier Georgia Willson-Pemberton, nearly 6 feet tall, wasted away to a skelatal 105 pounds from severe anorexia and died from ‘multiple organ dysfunction caused by laxative abuse.
The death of a 26-year-old former ski champion brings to light a devastating addiction of the dangerously thin.
Georgia Willson-Pemberton had it all: beauty, a prestigious education and the best of everything. But she was also battling anorexia and a laxative addiction.
Willson-Pemberton, once a gold medal child skier, took more than 80 laxative pills in a week, causing serious stomach and bowel damage. Her death on December 7 was ruled a "multiple organ dysfunction caused by laxative abuse," The Sun reports.
The 5'10" woman had wasted away to 105 pounds at the time of her death.
Willson-Pemberton, who lived in West London, had been struggling with anorexia for four years. She received treatment for her eating disorder at some of the top clinics in Britain and the U.S., including The Priory, but to no avail.
She once hid up to 200 pills in padded bras, counfounding her doctors and specialists.
Her parents found thousands of pills in her apartment after her death, they said.
“The world was her oyster, she could have done anything," her tearful father Robert Willson-Pemberton said in court during the inquest into her death.
"The disease consumed her. It was all she thought about."
Laxative pills can become addictive as the body builds up a tolerance, requiring more and more pills to achieve the same effect.
The loss of water from the body may cause electrolyte imbalance, muscle spasms and irregular heartbeat. Abusing the pills can also seriously damage the intestines.
Read full story here...
There are up to 24 million individuals suffering with eating disorders in the United States. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness. Fairwinds Treatment Center is a dual-diagnosis treatment facility, offering specialized care for patients with eating disorders and co-occuring mental illnesses that can attribute to these diseases. If you or a loved one are struggling with an eating disorder, such as anoexia, please contact Fairwinds Treatment Center today. our councelors are here to help find the best treatment options for your particular needs. Call 727-449-0300 or through our website here.