Eating Disorders

Do I look fat? Obsessing over body image and calories to the point of disordered eating is an affliction most commonly associated with young women and the glare of Hollywood, not with the sweet young things running around the playground. Sadly though, there's a disturbing trend that's seeing younger and younger children being treated for serious eating disorders. Reporting on the results of a new study on eating disorders — which shockingly included two 6-year-olds, four 7-year-olds, and even a tot as young as 3 in treatment — doctors say that statistics like this are likely just the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to the number of preteens actually suffering from debilitating conditions like anorexia and bulimia. Though it's nearly impossible to pinpoint one cause, doctors did say that "the pressure put on young people to conform to a certain body image could be blamed on a large number of eating disorders."

We've been hearing a lot about the childhood obesity epidemic lately, but not so much about the other end of the spectrum. Are you concerned about tots developing disordered eating?

DrSugar is in the house! This week she's discussing mommyrexia and the implications of eating disorders during and after pregnancy.

I recently read an article from the New York Post on "mommyrexia," a phenomenon garnering a lot of public attention recently. Mommyrexia describes pregnant women obsessed with staying skinny during pregnancy and then doing whatever they can to get back, as quickly as possible, to their prepregnancy weight/size after delivery. According to the article, these women count calories, exercise excessively while pregnant, and sometimes even forgo breastfeeding after delivery to free their schedules for tons of personal training and exercise. Society today is so obsessed with celebrities and body image, and in my opinion, is placing unwarranted pressure on women to maintain their slim physique during pregnancy, like Victoria Beckham and Rachel Zoe, and to be bikini-ready three weeks after delivery like Bethenny Frankel. As if there isn’t already enough pressure on the general population to be ridiculously skinny, this pressure now extends to the sacred time of pregnancy?

I feel compelled to write about eating disorders and their potential implications in pregnant women. However, I must add that there is a large spectrum of what can be considered normal regarding weight gain and activity during pregnancy. Every woman is different and will gain differing amounts of weight. Both activity and weight gain in pregnant women depend on multiple factors and should be determined on a case-by-case basis between a woman and her OB-GYN. By no means am I here to judge anyone on how they behave during their pregnancy. The purpose of this week's DrSugar column is to provide information on how eating disorders can affect pregnancy. To learn more, keep reading.

Do you hate fruit, vegetables, or food that isn't white? If so, there may finally be a scientific explanation for your picky eating habits. It's called selective eating disorder.

Researchers at the Duke Center for Eating Disorders say that preliminary results of a new survey suggest adults with an extremely limited food repertoire suffer from a previously unrecognized illness that they're calling selective eating disorder.

Rather than having a handful of food items they avoid, these diners eschew everything but several choice items. For reasons potentially both biological and behavioral, they reject foods based on qualities other than taste, like sight and smell.

Those of you acquainted with extremely picky eaters: do you consider it an illness — or simply fussy behavior?

How is it that women who identify as anorexic are nearly three times as likely to have an unplanned pregnancy than other women? Simple. Just because a woman stops menstruating doesn't mean she stops ovulating.

The results shocked the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, who conducted the study. Out of 62,060 women who participated, 62 identified as anorexic and half of them got pregnant by accident compared to only 19 percent of other women. Of course, where there are pregnancies, there are abortions, so anorexic women have more of them.

Amennhorea, period cessation, can be caused by a number of changes in the organs, glands, and hormones. Some anorexics stop ovulating, but clearly most don't. And lots of women with anorexia still have regular periods, so it's all very ambiguous.

Whatever it is, one thing is clear: women don't realize pregnancy can occur when periods cease, and that's a public health message that needs to be sent.

Since suffering from an eating disorder in her 20s, Kara DioGuardi has come a long way. With Paula Abdul gone, she is the current Queen Bee on American Idol; she also has an accomplished career as a songwriter and music producer. And at 38, she looks damn good — something she shared with the world during the series finale of American Idol last year. Kara stripped down to a black bikini to battle it out with a contestant known as "Bikini Girl," a move that she tells Women's Health this month defined her: "It probably saved my job. It was a defining moment. Like, 'She's serious and industry, but also as kooky as everyone else on this panel.' "

Here are more highlights from the interview.

• Battling an eating disorder. "I’d pretty much clean out the refrigerator. Food was my drug of choice. It anesthetized me so I wouldn’t have to feel whatever I was feeling. I’d stuff myself full of sugar and fall asleep."
• On eating healthy. "The more roughage you eat, the more it fills you up."
• On the importance of water. "Two huge bottles a day, minimum. I have them around — one upstairs, one in the car — to force me to remember."
• Her exercise routine. "Two miles of running or 25 minutes of cardio — boxing, treadmill, step-ups, walking lunges, sprints. I mix it up. And weight training is important as you get older. You build muscle which burns fat when you’re at rest."

To see the rest of the interview, pick up a copy of Women's Health, on newsstands tomorrow.

Photo courtesy of Fox

Sound delicious? Let's translate: it means "air diet" or as it's less commonly called "anorexia." France's latest fad diet is all the chore of eating (buying, preparing, plating), and none of the pleasure (tasting, chewing, digesting).

A Dolce and Gabbana ad campaign that features Madonna holding food to her mouth, but never actually ingesting, is being blamed/credited for the fad diet. Its job, though, is to create sexy pictures that build a brand and sell clothes. Madonna chewing and swallowing probably would hardly have the same je ne sais quoi. What is absurd is that French magazine Grazia is using this campaign to say L’Air Fooding is the new "it" diet. It even provides recipes for those moments when your lips win out over hips: boil water and add salt. Bon appétit!