National Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2009: ED News



In Good Health: Eating Disorders Awareness Week
The Fedrick News-post

This week is Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Up to 10 million people in the U.S. have some type of eating disorder, according to the National Eating Disorders Association, and the costs are high in both dollars and human life.

Anorexia nervosa, which includes self-starvation and excessive weight loss, has the highest premature mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder, according to NEDA. The annual cost to treat eating disorder patients in the U.S. is between $5 billion and $6 billion.

While eating disorders can start as preoccupations with food and weight, they often have a more complicated cause, according to NEDA. Behavioral, emotional, and social factors often contribute to the development of eating disorders as the affected person attempts to control food as a way to deal with overwhelming issues.

Read in full here.

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Dallas Woman Uses Own Recovery From Eating Disorder To Help Others
Pegasus

Abbie Chesney knows what it's like to be hungry. She also knows what it's like to be depressed. When the Dallas native was 16 and a student at Lake Highlands High School, she fell into a cycle: She would stop eating to make herself feel better, but then feel worse because she was not eating. So she'd abstain from eating even more.

"If I didn't eat, I would focus on the fact that I was so hungry, and not think about being depressed," she says.

The problem got so bad that she lost more than a third of her body weight in eight months. By age 16, she was diagnosed with anorexia and ended up at Baylor Hospital's eating disorder treatment program for five weeks.

"My body had deteriorated so bad that I had four leaking heart valves," she says.

Read in full here.

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GPs Are Failing Patients With Anorexia And Bulimia, Claims Charity
Nursing Times

It found that 59% of respondents had visited their GP about an eating disorder. But only 15% of respondents felt their GP understood eating disorders and knew how to help.

One patient said: 'When I first went to see my GP they didn't listen at all. They just told me it was a phase I was going through.'

Read in full here.
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Children (9) Seeking Help For Eating Disorders
Herald. ie

Children as young as nine are seeking help for eating disorders, a national support group has revealed.

Bodywhys chief executive Jacinta Hastings says the increasingly young age profile of callers is a worrying trend.

"The children affected by eating disorders are not only getting younger, but their conditions are becoming more complex. There is also a rise in the number of boys contacting us.

"There is peer pressure to conform to achieve a certain look, and what with societal pressure and the pressure of their own expectations, young people are becoming increasingly susceptible to eating disorders," said Ms Hastings.

Read in full here.
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Fighting The Inner Anorexic
BBC Today

Statistics released in response to a parliamentary question show an 80% rise in sufferers age 16 or under between 2006-7.

Of the 462 cases there was also a 207% rise in hospitalizations for 12-year-olds - from 13 to 40.

For those who are not anorexic, the condition can seem utterly incomprehensible. To help understand the disorder, Today presenter Evan Davis spoke to Constance Barter and her mother Sarah about their battle to overcome Constance's anorexia.

Read in full here.

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When Your Food Is Your Child's Enemy

IrishTimes

Eating disorders can be hard to diagnose and treat, and it can take five years to get to grips with anorexia once treatment starts, writes SHEILA WAYMAN

WHO DOESN’T have some sort of issue with food these days? It’s not surprising when we’re bombarded with advice on what we should or shouldn’t eat; regularly presented with “miracle” diets endorsed by some glamorous celebrity, and it’s deemed “news” when a pop singer is spotted wearing her size eight jeans days after giving birth.

Read in full here.


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