Articles on Eating Disorders

[Done-With-It!]

Brain chemistry link to anorexia?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4215298.stm


Scientists have produced evidence that the eating disorder anorexia nervosa is linked to disrupted brain chemistry.

They have shown a form of the disorder is associated with an alteration of the activity of serotonin - a chemical linked to mood and anxiety.

The University of Pittsburgh team hope their work could lead to the development of new drugs and psychological treatments.

The study is published in Archives of General Psychiatry.


The main symptom of anorexia nervosa is the relentless pursuit of thinness through self-starvation, driven by an obsessive fear of being fat.

There are two sub-types. One simply involves restricting food intake, the other involves periods of restrictive eating alternated with episodes of binge eating and /or purging, rather like bulimia.

The Pittsburgh team compared serotonin activity in women who had recovered from both sub-types of the disorder, with that in women who had never developed an eating disorder.

Using sophisticated brain scans, they showed significantly higher serotonin activity in several parts of the brains of women who had recovered from the bulimia-type form of the disorder.

Serotonin levels were also heightened in the group who had recovered from restricting-type anorexia, but not significantly so.

However, the highest levels in this group were found among those women who showed most signs of anxiety.

The researchers say their work suggests that persistent disruption of serotonin levels may lead to increased anxiety, which may trigger anorexia.

However, they could not rule out the possibility that serotonin levels were altered by the malnutrition associated with the disorder.


New treatments


The researchers, led by Dr Ursula Bailer, said: "There are no proven treatments for anorexia nervosa, and this illness has the highest mortality of any psychiatric disorder.

"These data offer the promise of a new understanding of the pathogenesis of anorexia nervosa and new drug and psychological treatment targets."

Professor Janet Treasure, an expert in eating disorders at King's College London said other research had suggested eating disorders were linked to disrupted serotonin levels.

She told the BBC News website: "The addition of drugs to psychotherapy for anorexia nervosa may be of help, especially in an outpatient setting, but adherence could be a problem as people with anorexia nervosa often are worried about taking drugs."

The King's team work with the Pittsburg team in a large International study to seek answers to the questions about what can cause or cure eating disorders.

They are currently seeking families in which more than one person has an eating disorder in order to define risk factors in the genes, in development and in the environment.

Further details are available from: Frankie Bishopp on Mobile 07932 506 518 (email: f.bishopp@iop.kcl.ac.uk).

[Done-With-It!]

Celebrity Love Island's Isabella Hervey has opened her heart about her horrific four-year battle with bulimia.

In an interview with Closer magazine, the 23-year-old confessed: "Food was my drug."

She revealed that she used to wolf down frozen pizzas to make herself feel better.

She also admitted she ate dog biscuits during the worst phase of her illness - and would then throw up in the toilet.

Lady Isabella, sister of It Girl Victoria, said: "I was throwing up so often that the glands in my throat swelled up so much I couldn't even swallow.

"Food became my drug and my obsession. I'd always binge on junk.

"I'd raid the kitchen for frozen pizza which I wouldn't bother defrosting, stodgy bread and greasy takeaways.

"I became a chocolate and a cake addict and could eat a whole cheesecake in one sitting."

Isabella blames her bulimia on problems at home. She told how she gets on badly with her sister Victoria, who is five years older than her, and felt under pressure to live up to her mother's high expectations.

"Whenever I felt down or had a row with mum, bulimia would rear its head," she said.

Isabella recovered from the illness after being treated at celebrity rehab clinic The Priory.

She said: "Sport really helped my recovery. I love working out - I get a surge of happy endorphins that make me feel good about myself, but I don't obsess if I miss a session."




http://www.sky.com/showbiz/article/0...191649,00.html

[Done-With-It!]

From: The Age (Australia)

The number of girls suffering anorexia and bulimia is increasing dramatically, but they are still not taken seriously enough. Liz Gooch and Farah Farouque report.


My Body - Myself

The number of girls suffering anorexia and bulimia is increasing dramatically, but they are still not taken seriously enough. Liz Gooch and Farah Farouque report.

She calls it "Bulimia City", the smart private school in the suburbs where parents invest in high expectations.

The girls have ski trips, private tennis coaching and intensive VCE instruction, but that doesn’t stop some from venturing out secretly to throw up their lunch. They are, in the words of one website, in pursuit of "thin-spiration".

"There’s never been a more difficult time for girls to feel good about themselves and good about their bodies," says eating disorder expert Dr Rick Kausman, who has treated a girl as young as six in his Melbourne practice. "We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg at the moment in terms of the difficulties that so many young women have."

A report by a committee in the Victorian Parliament this week pointed the finger partly at the media, urging advertisers, media owners and governments to work on a national code to reduce the pressure on young people to be thin by suppressing images of emaciated models.


But the committee also acknowledged there was "a serious service gap" in treatment for teenagers grappling with body image problems, especially in country areas. In an unusual step, the committee -none of them medical doctors - went as far as advocating a trial in the state’s public hospitals of a controversial Swedish method involving the use of temperature treatments in severe cases.

It’s a sign of growing concern about the prevalence of eating disorders among adolescent girls. In a society in which The OC’s stick-thin Mischa Barton, heiress Paris Hilton and the Olsen twins are the teenage icons, some health professionals in the community worry the problem is still not being taken seriously enough.

Anorexia nervosa, a disorder once dubbed "Golden Girl syndrome", has become the third most common chronic illness for girls in Australia after obesity and asthma. It now affects about one in 100, according to the Victorian Centre of Excellence in Eating Disorders.

Official data suggests five in 100 teenage girls also suffer from the binge eating condition, bulimia nervosa.

However, studies suggest only about 1 in 10 sufferers are detected: the true figure may be as high as one in five of the student population. The condition is also said to be growing among boys.

Meanwhile, the number of young people being admitted to hospital has grown over the last decade at the Royal Children’s Hospital’s Centre for Adolescent Health. Director Susan Sawyer says the service now counsels younger patients than ever before and recently treated a 10-year-old girl. "We didn’t see that a decade ago."

The bipartisan parliamentary committee, which conducted an 18- month inquiry and took testimony from professionals and sufferers of eating disorders, prescribes greater media self-control in circulating unattainable images of female "beauty".

But to what extent is the media really to blame in encouraging teenagers’ unhealthy obsession with body image? Kausman, an Australian Medical Association spokesman and author of If Not Dieting, Then What?, suggests the impact of a thin model on a glossy page cannot be underestimated. Some young girls get into the dangerous habit of comparisons, he says.

"If people have got to that place, it’s a very toxic environment for young people to be."

A flick through popular magazines targeting young women and girls, such as Dolly, Girlfriend, Cosmo and Cleo, reveals an often confusing message. Some articles show a newfound sensitivity to body image issues by including stories about battles with eating disorders, but such real-life stories are often nestled between tips for losing weight or ads featuring airbrushed teen idols.

Professor Susan Paxton, a psychologist from La Trobe University, says being exposed to digitally altered, unrealistic images in magazines distorts young people’s view of what really constitutes a healthy body size.

While readers may be aware that images have been altered, that doesn’t stop the comparisons.

"The girls who are most negatively affected are those who already have poor body image, who believe that being very thin is important in life and who lack confidence in themselves," says Paxton, who condemns models used in the popular magazines as homogenous in shape, appearance and ethnicity. "There is very little variety in size and shape, which encourages the belief that there is only one size and shape that is attractive and desirable."

At the Sydney headquarters of teen magazine Dolly, body image is one of the first items on the agenda when planning a new issue. Editor Bronwyn McCahon says her magazine and stablemate Cosmopolitan, which attracts an older crowd, now follow what is known as the "body love" policy. This is all about including girls of all shapes and sizes.

McCahon challenges anyone who believes magazines only portray waiflike models to look at her product.

"When I was reading magazines it was all about the supermodel," she says. "But now, particularly in the last five, six years, there’s been a big turnaround. If you open any magazines now you will find models that are size eight but you’ll also find ones that are a decent size 12 and 14."

She questions how a voluntary code of conduct would work. To be effective, she says, a code would need to cover all forms of media accessed by teenagers, including movies, television and the internet. Cosmo editor Sarah Wilson concurs, saying her magazines never feature diets and size 16 models regularly grace her pages. (Few were noticeable in the latest edition.)

If a code seems unlikely - it would have to be national and almost certainly voluntary - doctors and others working in the area are left to despair that the issue, while popular media fare now, is barely taken seriously. Sawyer, from the Children’s Hospital, says eating disorders are "life-threatening, serious disorders".

"If we talk about depression, or psychosis or major anxiety, to me that’s taken seriously, but there is something about eating disorders that I think people are not recognising, that this is not just women wanting to lose a bit of weight and having a bit of anxiety."

People suffering from bulimia receive behaviour therapy with a psychologist or psychiatrist. Treatment for anorexia is more complex; sufferers require both psychological and physical treatment. The sicker the patient, the greater the need for hospital- based care and a combined approach from nutritionists, dietitians and GPs.

People with severe disorders are treated at one of three Melbourne hospitals, while those who can live at home are treated at child and mental health clinics or by private medical practitioners. Sawyer says more dedicated funding is needed. She suggests moving towards a series of "one-stop shop" clinical models, where patients can access a range of professionals under one roof. At present, she says, people who provide treatment for eating disorders, such as psychologists, nutritionists and doctors, are too dispersed.

Sawyer is also sceptical about a trial of the Swedish-based Karolinska Institute treatment for eating disorders. The institute, which claims 75 per cent of its patients enter remission after 14 months, runs an intensive program based on the notion that restoring normal eating habits is essential to helping patients recover.

The technique relies on a computer to tell patients the rate at which they need to eat and how much they need to eat to feel full. It also incorporates "thermo therapy", a treatment tool in which the temperature of a room is raised after patients have eaten, in order to relax them.

Dr Paul Lee, a psychiatrist and director of the child and adolescent mental health service at Southern Health, has visited the Swedish program and questions how unique it is. The program, he argues, is not a "fix-all", its apparent success might just come down to the high level of resourcing for staff and facilities.

"The counter-argument is that if we have a dedicated program that can support patients for 14 to 18 months, what sort of results would we get? I don’t know, because there are not too many services like that in Australia."

The need for action, as the parliamentary report has identified, is urgent. There is new evidence that the proliferation of television programs celebrating plastic surgery as the answer to the perfect body are also having a dramatic impact on young women.

A recent survey of 70 girls and women aged 12 to 25 found almost 80 per cent would consider having plastic surgery in the future. Threequarters could already nominate body parts they would "fix", with tummy tucks, liposuction and breast enlargements among the most desired procedures.

"It might start with body image," said one mother who spoke to the parliamentary committee after her severely anorexic daughter attempted suicide for the fourth time. "But it becomes more and more complex. Living with an eating disorder is a bit like living with a third world war going on inside your body."

[Done-With-It!]

Anorexia patients are stepping into the shoes of singer Christina Aguilera to provide a better insight into their illness.
Girls being treated for eating disorders at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne have been attending songwriting workshops to help them express feelings they may not have revealed before.
The lyrics are also being used by health professionals to help the hospital best direct individual treatment.
"They wanted to be Christina Aguilera and say something important in their songs, and they told the truth," University of Melbourne music therapist Katrina McFerran said.
"They told their most dramatic stories."
Aguilera sings about her childhood experiences in her hit song A Voice Within.
Dr McFerran has been studying the lyrics of 17 songs written over three years by 15 girls with eating disorders.
She found the most common theme was questions about identity, closely followed by lyrics around the bond between mother and daughter.

"Relationships with mother came up again and again in these songs, which I hadn't noticed clinically when I was working with these young women," Dr McFerran said.
"Sometimes they were describing relationships that we sometimes think: 'Ooh, is that a little bit too close?' Is that person struggling to work out who they are because they're so closely bonded to their Mum and they're scared of growing up and apart from that?"
In other cases, Dr McFerran said the message was more about strains in the relationship such as after the mother remarried.
She said she was careful to avoid making exaggerated claims about what the lyrics may mean in terms of the causes of anorexia, which is still a little-understood illness with only a 50 per cent recovery rate.
But she said she hoped to further explore the possibility some adolescents struggling with growing up may be using their eating patterns to stop their development.
"That certainly is a popular theory on anorexia which onsets in adolescence - that the children are scared of growing up," Dr McFerran said.
"Anorexia is made out to be this big dieting 'I want to look pretty' kind of disease, and I hardly came across anybody for whom that was why they ended up with anorexia. It's much more of a mental illness than that."
Dr McFerran said a number of studies had shown women with anorexia found music therapy helpful.
But she said large randomised, controlled trials would be needed to scientifically assess whether such therapy helped anorexia patients recover.
"It was certainly very helpful for the girls in that they sometimes expressed or told stories that they hadn't shared at all before, and that's an important part of the therapy process in being able to acknowledge what it is that's going on," Dr McFerran said.
"You're then more able to take control of a situation rather than be controlled by it."
Dr McFerran is recruiting six to eight adolescents with anorexia to take part in group music-therapy sessions over six months to further her research.


http://www.theage.com.au/news/Music/...?oneclick=true

[Done-With-It!]

Canadian singer Alanis Morrissette developed problems with bulimia and anorexia when a music industry executive informed her she would struggle to be successful as a "fat" girl.
The 31-year-old singer sold 30 million copies of her 1995 debut album JAGGED LITTLE PILL and has won seven GRAMMY AWARDS during her career, but when she was a young teen she was led to believe she'd never be such a hit unless she starved herself.
She tells American magazine US WEEKLY, "Between the ages of 14 and 18, I struggled with anorexia and bulimia. I felt like I had to be perfect and adhere to a standard of beauty.
"I recall being called to a meeting at the recording studio, and the person said, 'I know I called you to redo vocals, but I actually want to talk to you about your weight. You can't be successful if you're fat.
"The pressure was hardcore. For four to six months at a time, I would barely eat, so I constantly felt dizzy. I lived on a diet of Melba toast, carrots and black coffee. Once, I went to dinner with someone I was working on a video with, and he ordered a big pizza. But all I had was black coffee because he was like, 'You can't eat. And don't even put milk in (the coffee).'"
Morissette eventually adopted a more healthy lifestyle after a friend confronted her about her drastic weight loss.
She adds, "Now I go through phases when it comes to food. Sometimes I'm uber-health-conscious. Other times I'll cut myself some slack - if I want chocolate fondue, I'll have it. I'm proud to say I feel healthy."

http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/morissette%20relives%20battles%20with%20eating%20d isorders

[Kellie]

Wow the Industry Sucks!
Sadly you hear these types of stories way too often.
I admire the artists who refuse to play the anorexic hollywood game "Dying to be Thin".

[Done-With-It!]

Reality is most of these artists refuse to
'Play the anorexic game'
only 'After' they make it.

Sad but true, 98% of the time, if your not thin in Hollywood, You Won't work.

[Done-With-It!]

Published: 08.07.2006


Quilt to warn about eating disorders
By Josie Schlink


MOHAVE VALLEY DAILY NEWS
BULLHEAD CITY — For Sharon Haugen, every parent's nightmare became a reality five years ago.
"It's like it happened yesterday," said the Bullhead City resident. "It's so hard. I don't want any parent to go through this."
Haugen discovered her daughter, Heidi, dead on March 26, 2001, after fighting a 15-year battle with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa.
During her grieving process, Haugen founded "For the Love of Heidi," a campaign to raise awareness for the treatment and prevention of eating disorders.
"My goal is to dispel the myth and misunderstanding of eating disorders and help others, in Heidi's memory, to get the treatment early on and to prevent this disease from invading the victim so deeply," she said.
Amid political action and education, her latest project is the Eating Disorders Memorial Quilt, in conjunction with the Eating Disorders Coalition.
The quilt will be assembled in Washington, D.C., and displayed Sept. 14 at the coalition's Lobby Days & Congressional Briefings and at other events. Similar to the international AIDS quilt, it will be composed of panels representing anorexia victims. And like the AIDS quilt, submissions are welcome from across the globe.
"They're not just dying here — they're dying all over the world," Haugen said.
Heidi Haugen was 30 years old at the time of her death. She had been taking medication for depression and anxiety and rarely eating, a deadly combination for her 5-foot-9-inch, 93-pound frame.
"The findings were that she had become toxic," Haugen said. "Over a period of time, her body just gave out."
Haugen believes Heidi's death could have been prevented with proper treatment. During the course of her disease, mother and daughter endured a long, frustrating struggle searching for affordable health care. Their insurance company failed to provide long-term, in-patient care, what they believed to be the only option for recovery. Instead, they offered only prescription medication and brief, limited therapy, Haugen said.
"They'll treat the symptoms, but they won't treat the disease," Haugen said. "It's a real shame that they don't want to prevent it."
And the prevention of eating disorders is possible with proper education, she said.
"My goal is to help inform people. That's why I'm doing this — to help other people and to help Heidi's memory," she said.
Haugen said she believes Heidi displayed many early warning signs of anorexia, but she failed to recognize them until the later stages, when Heidi had lost a substantial amount of weight in a short time.
According to literature from the coalition, weight loss is only one symptom of anorexia. Victims of the disorder may also report a distorted body image, believing they are overweight when they are, in fact, dangerously thin. Individuals with anorexia may seem overly preoccupied with food and weight and may exercise excessively.
They may eat next to nothing but deny being hungry. Other symptoms may include absent menstruation, sensitivity to cold and an unwarranted fear of weight gain.
"If people can be made aware of the signs they need to watch out for, they can get help," Haugen said.
Haugen said turmoil in her daughter's life was part of what brought on the disorder, similar to many other cases. When the individual has inescapable trouble at home or school, she directs focus to something she can control — her weight.
"They can't deal with trauma (and) they internalize it," Haugen said. "They have control of their bodies."
Haugen is actively involved in trying to change laws that fail to recognize eating disorders as serious medical conditions. She and other coalition representatives are advocates for a proposed House resolution. The Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act of 2005 would require insurance companies to view physical and mental health issues equally.
They also support the Eating Disorders Awareness, Education and Prevention Act of 2005, the Improved Nutrition and Physical Activity Act and other House and Senate bills.
Haugen encourages residents interested in creating a quilt panel to decorate a 16-by-16-inch square of fabric with fabric paint, markers, transferred photographs or any other items they choose. The deadline for submission for this year's display is Aug. 15, but it is never too late to send panels for future displays.
Squares will continually be accepted and added.

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