FitSugar

Ana and Mia: My Eating Disorder "Friends"

FitSugar — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:15:00 PST

If you're searching for information on the internet about eating disorders, you're bound to come across 2 girls' names, Ana and Mia.

I've seen it phrased, "My Life With Ana," "Me and Mia," "PRO-Ana," and sadly, "Mia hates You." No, these aren't real girls' names. Ana is short for Anorexia and Mia is short for Bulimia. These nicknames are a way to personify eating disorders, and to make it easier for people to talk openly about them.

Since it is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, I thought you should know that there are so many "PRO-Ana" videos out there that sadly promote eating disorders. I found one video of a girl who was sick of it. She recovered from eating disorders herself, and made this video to reveal the true picture of what it means to go through it.

I have a few more things to say on this subject, so

read more Anorexia and Bulimia are not only about food. Eating disorders become a mechanism to cope with serious emotional problems. They are a way to gain control over your life. People with eating disorders suffer through a constant battle with self-hatred and obsess about food, calories, grams of fat, and their weight. Their lives become about dieting, binging, purging, and refraining from food all together. It's kind of like a self-punishment for not being perfect. Fit's Tips: If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, there are many people and treatment centers available who want to help. Avalon Hills is located in Utah, Fairwinds in Florida, Monte Nido in California, and Renfrew in Pennsylvania. They all offer counseling programs to help people heal their hearts and change their lives. There are also some great PR0-RECOVERY sites out there. Check out Something Fishy, and the National Eating Disorder Association, they are both excellent resources.

Body Image Therapy for Eating Disorders

FitSugar — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:15:00 PST

It light of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week I wanted to tell you about the therapies used in recovery programs. I often associate eating disorders with control issues, but according to professionals at the Menninger Clinic in Houston folks with eating disorders spend nearly every waking moment - up to 80 to 90 percent of their day - obsessing about their appearance. Replacing this negative habit with a positive body image is essential to recovering from an eating disorder.

According to Dr. Fassihi who helped create the program:

It's very difficult to do because we live in an anorexic culture where the thin ideal is all we see in the media and people basically have to challenge that definition of beauty in order to recover. In research, we've found that body image issues are the last thing to change when we are treating people with eating disorders.

A key part of the program is taking a body image history, where the patient begins to construct how her destructive body image came to be. Many patients find that their's developed at quite an early age, with thin messages coming from society and the media and chubby messages coming from family and peers.

Aside from constructing a personal history, patients learn the true size of their body in comparison to their mental images. I found the string exercise especially interesting. Patients are asked to measure out how much string it would take to encircle a particular body part (often the parts the patients find "offensive") like a thigh or the waist. Often the string is at least 3 times the actual circumference of the body part. In seeing the vast differences between the two the patients begin to recognize the internal idea versus the external reality.

There is more to the program, so

read more Group therapy plays a key role in the recovery process as well. Patients participate in "body image parties" where they describe their bodies and the group helps turn negative descriptions into positive ones. “Patients gain some important insights through the body image groups while at Menninger,” Dr. Fassihi says. “They learn about how their body image issues impact their lives, and most seem to re-evaluate the importance they have been placing on appearance.” To learn more about the Menniger Clinic visit their website. To find a recovery program in your area, check out the Finder page at Something Fishy. Help is out there, you just need to take the first step.

Katharine McPhee: On Bulimia and Recovery

FitSugar — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:41:26 PST

Last year, after barely losing out to Taylor Hicks for the title of American Idol, Katharine McPhee stated that the reality show saved her life and not for the reasons you might think.

When Katharine received the news she made it to the final twelve girls of the competition, she decided it was time to face the eating disorder of bulimia that was ruining her most valuable attribute - her vocal cords. Bulimics eat excessive amounts of food, often feeling out of control, then, out of disgust and a fear of gaining weight, resort to vomiting or laxatives or other extremes.

After discussing her 5-year bout with bulimia with her parents, Katherine enrolled in an intensive recovery program at Los Angeles's Eating Disorder Center Of California. And intensive it was. The three month long program met 6 days a week for 10-hour days with group and individual therapy. It completely changed her relationship to food, saying:

"I learned that there's no such thing as a bad food. If you look at a doughnut, people think it's a fattening food--why? Because if you eat it you'll get fat? No, you'll get fat if you eat 10 doughnuts."

Her problems began when she was 17 and she attributes her eating disorder to geography - growing up in slender body conscious L.A. had an affect on her.

"Growing up in Los Angeles and spending all those years in dance class, I'd been conscious of body image at a young age, and I went through phases of exercising compulsively and starving myself."

Katharine has a great voice and she faced her bulimia to protect it, as well as her physical and mental health. I have so much respect for her for publicly discussing her eating disorder and recovery process. She knows she is a role model for young girls and she takes it seriously. One ironic fact about her recovery process is that she lost 30 pounds while redefining her relationship to eating. Katharine's story proves you can make it to the other side of an eating disorder and thrive.

Source

Binge Eating: The Lesser Known Disorder

FitSugar — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 03:00:17 PST

Did you know that binge eating has now become America's most common eating disorder, affecting one in 35 women, making it three times as common as anorexia nervosa? I honestly didn't know until I was watching CNN and saw the story of a young lady who suffered with binge eating.

Binge eating is a relatively unknown disorder since most people think that eating disorders are about not eating, rather than overeating. The reason it has been so unknown is because there seems to be a greater stigma attached to binge eating than to anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, so people are less likely to admit to the problem. Natalie, the woman featured on CNN, revealed that her binges would include: a sleeve of Ritz crackers with peanut butter, Triscuits, some cheese from the refrigerator, maybe some cream cheese straight out of the carton, maybe some mayonnaise right out of the jar. Natalie, like others with this disorder, experience a food high and addiction like you would from a drug. Binge eaters keep their eating a secret and some avoid weight gain by exercising excessively.

Why is it bad: The major complications of binge eating disorder are the diseases that could accompany obesity (Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, gallbladder disease, heart disease and certain types of cancer). Furthermore, people with binge eating disorder can be extremely distressed by their binge eating. Some people miss work, school, or social activities to binge eat. Obese people with binge eating disorder often feel bad about themselves, are preoccupied with their appearance, which can lead to avoiding social gatherings. Like most eating disorders, binge eaters try to hide their problem so that close family members and friends don't know what they are doing behind closed doors.

Binge eating is more than pigging out on pizza on a Friday night, a binge has two main components. One is eating an abnormally large amount of food in a short period of time and the other is having a sense of loss of control of the eating. Worried that you or someone you know may be a binge eater? Take the quiz on Overeaters Anonymous.

Portia de Rossi: On the Other Side of Her Eating Disorder

FitSugar — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:00:17 PST

We've seen a lot of Portia de Rossi in recent days - accompanying her girlfriend Ellen to the Oscars, bragging to Barbara Walters about all of the citrus trees they have on their ranch in Santa Barbara (I only have a one lemon tree so I am bit jealous). I find it great that there is more of her than there used to be. I mean literally more of her. In 1999, at the height of her eating disorder while working on Ally McBeal, she weighed as little as 82 pounds.

At 5 feet 7 and half inches tall this makes her BMI 12.8 woefully low, too low to walk the runway in Madrid. During this calorie deprived, exercise obsessed time, her family gently intervened. Her mother and brother told her point blank that she was killing herself. Family support is so important when dealing with anorexia and other eating disorders, and they helped her turn the corner.

Portia is concerned that other actresses do not follow in her footsteps. She warns them "‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ because I have firsthand experience with being caught up in the whole Hollywood body thing.” She does also wonder if she was not a member of the Ally McBeal cast, where many of the actresses were famously underweight, if she would have gotten caught up in becoming dangerously thin.

After limiting her food intake to 300 calories a day back in 1999, she no longer puts restrictions on food. Which is great because there are so many great dishes to make with all the fresh citrus fruit.

Ellen has also helped her come to terms with her eating issues.

“We’ve talked a lot about this. I’m not proud of this struggle. [While anorexic] it just seemed like I literally wanted to disappear. And now I would like to reappear.”

Well I for one would love to see more of her. I miss her and Arrested Development and hope to see her on screen soon. I think it is great that she is talking about her experience.

Source

Are Models Too Thin, or Not Thin Enough?

FitSugar — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:04:17 PST

Scandal loves Janice Dickinson and Janice Dickinson loves scandal.

On eating disorders, she has been reported to say:

"I'm dying to find kids who are too thin. I've got 42 models in my agency and I'm trying to get them to lose weight. In fact, I wish they'd come down with some anorexia. I'm not kidding. I'm running into a bunch of fat-assed, lazy little bitches who don't know how to do the stairs or get their butts into the gym."

So being that it is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, what do you guys think about her statement?

Source

Eating Disorder Recovery Website: Something-Fishy

FitSugar — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 03:30:00 PST

It is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, so I wanted to tell you all about a great "pro-recovery" site. Seems like an excellent response to all those "pro-ana" websites out there. Something Fishy is an organization dedicated to raising awareness and providing support to people with Eating Disorders, and their loved-ones.

This is a really active site with very busy forums - a great way to network for support. It feels like a super supportive community of folks in recovery from EDs and their families. Plus, Something Fishy has a comprehensive list of treatment finder, a roll of recent new stories and resources for helping at risk loved ones.

Please check out this site if you need help and some support or have a loved one who does. It is a valuable resource.

Thin the Movie: The Reality of Eating Disorders

FitSugar — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:45:00 PST

Eating disorders affect 5 million people in the U.S. More than 10% of those diagnosed with anorexia nervosa will die from the disease. Seeking to put a human face on these sobering statistics, acclaimed photographer Lauren Greenfield went inside a Florida treatment center to tell the stories of four women who are literally dying to be thin.

The devastating documentary film titled Thin, reveals her findings. It is captivating and you are drawn in by the heart-wrenching stories of these girls and their painful struggles as they each try to recover.

You can purchase Thin, a groundbreaking book about eating disorders. Greenfield's photographs are paired with extensive interviews and journal entries from twenty girls and women suffering not only from their eating disorders, but from the personal struggles that lead to the disorders in the first place.

National Eating Disorder Awareness Week

FitSugar — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 03:00:03 PST

I want to make you all aware that it is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Eating disorders are serious issues and there are a lot of folks out there suffering. Most of us have heard of anorexia and bulimia, but MSNBC recently reported that binge eating is the most common eating disorder in the US. Just as it not easy to assume that all eating disorders are the same, it is not easy to determine the cause of eating disorders.

The National Eating Disorder Association sponsors the week of awareness, and events are held all over the nation. Check their website calendar to see if there is an event happening near you. The site has a wealth of information. Best of all the NEDA website has treatment referrals for folks at risk for eating disorders.

The theme this year for National Eating Disorder Awareness week is: "Be comfortable in your genes. Wear jeans that fit the REAL you." A sentiment we can all appreciate, especially since this is the year the dreaded "skinny jeans" become a fashion staple.