No Thinspiration

A centre of excellence to treat a growing number of patients with eating disorders has been relaunched in Yorkshire as experts warn more young people than ever are in need of specialist care.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Liam Donaldson officially marked the landmark at the Yorkshire Centre for Eating Disorders in Seacroft, Leeds.

The number of inpatient beds at the centre is being increased from 16 to 19 as it deals with an increasing number of referrals of seriously ill patients from across the North of England and further afield, treating as many as 200 people a year.

A link-up with the world-leading service provided at St George’s Hospital in London is also enhancing expertise and leading to new research into problems caused by anorexia nervosa and severe bulimia.
Doctors fear increasing pressures on both sexes are leading to more cases amid evidence one in five young women aged 14-30 now have eating binges, one in 20 have bulimia and one per cent are anorexic. A massive 80 per cent believe they are overweight while even girls as young as nine or 10 view their bodies in disparaging terms.

There are also signs more boys are suffering disorders. About 10 per cent of patients treated in Leeds are male.
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Doctors have been issued with controversial new guidelines which spell out for the first time when they are legally allowed to force-feed anorexic patients close to death.

The rules state that if two doctors believe an anorexic patient is mentally ill and in danger of dying, the patient can be sedated and tube-fed against their will.

The new Scottish guidelines, issued by the Mental Welfare Commission, also allow dangerously underweight children to be force-fed against the wishes of their parents.

Anorexia affects a growing number of Scots and there has been severe criticism of the lack of specialist services. Scotland on Sunday can reveal that each year around 30 patients are already tube-fed without consent north of the Border.

The practice is allowed under existing mental health laws, but until now there has been no specific guidance on when and how anorexic patients should be force-fed, leaving medics vulnerable to compensation claims.

Patients’ groups last night expressed concern about the guidelines because they fear doctors will be more likely to resort to force-feeding rather than trying to persuade patients to consent to treatment.

But Dr Flora Sinclair, medical officer for the Mental Welfare Commission, said they wanted to ensure the practice was only carried out as a last resort and under strict criteria.

Patients who become extremely ill as a result of their eating disorder need to be kept alive by artificial means, such as a tube inserted into the nose or stomach which gives the body vital nutrients.
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Nicole Richie was briefly hospitalized for dehydration Friday after falling ill while filming The Simple Life.

According to E! Online, Richie, 25, was examined by a doctor on the set of the E! reality series and then taken to a nearby hospital.

She was given intravenous fluids for 15 minutes and then released.

“Nicole is home resting and will return to work this evening,” her rep said in a statement. “We are proud of the weight that Nicole is gaining and her focus on her health.”

Richie announced in October that she seeking treatment for what her rep described as an inability to put on weight.

“She is working with a team of doctors and specialists whose focus is nutrition,” her rep told PEOPLE in a statement. “It is important to Nicole that she achieves this goal in a healthy way as this is not a treatment for an eating disorder.”
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When you’re hungry, take a nap. Shower, drink tea, numb your taste buds with teething gel, give yourself a manicure. Do anything but eat. These are some of the tips that “pro-ana,” or pro-anorexia Web sites offer to those who choose to restrict their eating.

These Web sites gained popularity the last few years as a kind of support group and community for those who have accepted anorexia as a lifestyle rather than a disorder. They have also become a source of national concern as those with eating disorders reinforce self-destructive habits and ideals through the Web sites.

Before this year, there was no actual study on the effects of viewing the Web sites, but two MU researchers, Anna Bardone-Cone and Kamila Cass, have published a pilot study in “European Eating Disorders Review.” Their larger study about the topic is being considered for publication in an eating disorder journal.

There is a format that comes with a pro-ana, mia (bulimia) or pro-ED (eating disorder) Web site. There’s the “thinspiration” section filled with pictures of rail-thin runway models and celebrities, sometimes accompanied with their measurements, “to set better goals for yourself and to keep on track,” as displayed on “Shophisticated,” a pro-ana Web site. There’s also the “reverse trigger” section, composed of pictures of morbidly obese people, greasy food and “fat” celebrities.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many women may fail to recognize bulimia symptoms in themselves, particularly if they don’t go to the extremes of self-induced vomiting, new research suggests.

In a study of 158 women with bulimia-type eating disorders, Australian researchers found that nearly half did not acknowledge a problem with their eating. This was particularly true of those who did not vomit to control their weight.

Bulimia is widely known as a “binge-purge” eating disorder, in which a person goes through cycles of excessive eating followed by purging – through either vomiting or abusing laxatives and diuretics.

But there are also non-purging forms of bulimia, where tactics like excessive exercise or strict dieting are used to counter binge-eating episodes.

Still other people have certain symptoms of bulimia but fall short of all the criteria used to diagnose the disorder; they may fall into the category of “eating disorder not otherwise specified,” or EDNOS.

The new study, published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, focused on women with “bulimic-type” eating disorders. This included those with purging or non-purging bulimia, as well as women with EDNOS. Some women in the latter group were diagnosed with binge-eating disorder, which involves excessive eating but no purging to compensate]
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CBSNews is also talking about thinspiration and sites: “Kids Learn Harmful Behavior From Pro-Eating-Disorder Web Sites And Recovery Web Sites”

Teens with eating disorders are picking up dangerous tips from both pro-eating-disorder Web sites and sites designed to treat the problem, according to a new study.

And though most of their parents know about the pro-eating-disorder Web sites, few sit down and talk to their kids about them.

The so-called “pro-Ana” Web sites — shorthand for pro-anorexia — offer tips on extreme weight loss and purging. They suggest that believing one can’t be too thin is a lifestyle choice, not an eating disorder. The sites often offer strategies for avoiding detection by parents and doctors when purging. Site forums allow teens with eating disorders to share tips and offer support.

These sites usually carry “thinspiration” pictures — sometimes shocking images of extremely thin young people.

How much do teens with eating disorders and their parents know about these sites? In an effort to find out, researchers surveyed families of patients age 10-22 treated at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
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More than half the people diagnosed with eating disorder anorexia never fully recover, 20 percent remain chronically ill and five percent die, the British Medical Journal estimates.

Here are some key facts on the disease:

WHO IS MOST AT RISK?
- Anorexia has the highest fatality rate of any psychiatric illness, with 13 to 18 percent of sufferers dying, most commonly due to heart disease or suicide, health experts in Britain say.

- Eating disorders are generally more prevalent in industrialized countries, among young women or adolescent girls.

- An estimated three percent of young women experience eating disorders. In Britain, about five to ten percent of women aged 14 to 24 suffer from some form of eating disorder.

- Eating disorders are more common among competitive athletes than the general population. Female gymnasts, ballerinas, figure skaters, and distance runners are at high risk, as are male bodybuilders and wrestlers.
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Young sufferers of anorexia and bulimia who try to hide their eating problems from their parents and doctors are turning to a growing number of internet chat rooms dedicated to perpetuating their illness.

A pilot study released this week of US eating disorder patients aged between 10 and 22 showed that up to a third learn new weight loss or purging methods from websites that promote eating disorders by enabling users to share tips, such as what drugs induce vomiting and what internet sites sell them.

But the study - published in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ journal Pediatrics - found that eating disorder sufferers were also learning new high-risk ways to lose weight from each other on websites aimed at helping them recover.

The survey by researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford showed a third of patients also visited pro-recovery sites and half of them learnt new weight loss and purging methods.

“Parents and physicians need to realise that the internet is essentially an unmonitored media forum,” said Rebecka Peebles, Packard Children’s adolescent medicine and eating disorder specialist and an author of the study.
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After Cibeles (spanish catwalk) rejected some extra skinny models, anorexic girls still can work in some other countries without problems.

One of the world’s most famous fashion designers yesterday became the first to speak out against the use of stick-thin models.

Giorgio Armani urged the fashion industry not to use ’size zero’ models in an effort to curb the rise in eating disorders among young women.

If you are a young woman with anorexia, the best way to figure out the seriousness of your problem would be to go to your doctor to see if you will require hospitalization or psychiatric services. Recovery from anorexia nervosa includes both short- and long-term treatment, help from dietitions, psychiatrists and doctors who specialize in anorexia.

Hospital treatment is recommended for anorexics with any of the following characteristics: weight of 40% or more below normal body weight, or more than 30 pounds of weight- loss over a three-month period, severely disturbed metabolism, serious binging and purging, severe depression or risk of suicide. During hospitalization, you will have individual and group therapy as well as refeeding and monitoring of your physical condition. Treatment usually requires two to four months in the hospital. In extreme cases, you may be force-fed through a tube inserted in the nose (nasogastric tube) or by over-feeding.

Anorexics have been treated with many different medications, including antidepressants and antianxiety drugs. The effectiveness of these medications are not certain. However, at least one study of Prozac showed it helped patients maintain the weight gained while in the hospital. The determination for long-term recovery may vary from study to study, but the most reliable estimates are that 40 - 60% of anorexics will make a good physical and social recovery, and 75% will gain weight after treatment. The long-term mortality rate for anorexia is estimated at around 10% (or 1 in 10 with anorexia), although some studies give a lower figure of 3 - 4%.

Vía: Anred