News 15

Anti-suicide Therapy May Help Bulimics Cope With Disease
A form of therapy originally developed to keep people from attempting suicide also seems to help bulimics break out of the binge/purge cycle. "Dialectical behavior therapy," as it's called, teaches new ways to control and manage emotions, replacing dangerous behaviors with much healthier options.

'Uneven fat' hits anorexic fightback
Anorexics could have their recovery harmed by gaining weight unevenly, according to a new study. The study by researchers found that women suffering anorexia nervosa who were putting on weight, tended to have a disproportionate amount of body fat on their abdomen and torso.

Orthorexia: Good Diets Gone Bad
Her parents are health food nuts, says the 32-year-old North Carolina woman, who asks that her name not be used. "I can't remember a time when they weren't. It just got worse over the years ... much worse since they retired." When she was a child, her parents first phased sugar from the family's diet. "Then they progressed into herbal remedies and supplements ... major pill popping ... then a vegan diet," she tells WebMD. "They tried every extreme trend that came along in the '80s."

Prozac Effective in Sustaining Remission of Eating Disorders
Fluoxetine hydrochloride (Prozac) is effective in helping people with anorexia nervosa maintain healthy body weight. The research is the first to suggest that an antidepressant may be useful in helping recovering anorexics sustain normal weight post-hospitalization. It also provides additional evidence that eating disorders are true biochemical brain illnesses, along the lines of depression and other mood disorders.

All change for school dinners
Schools in England are now being told how much of different types of food they must serve for lunch. Local education authorities are being urged to keep a close watch on school kitchens to ensure the revised guidelines - in force from this week - are being met. The guidelines aim to reduce health problems such as obesity and anorexia and decrease the risk of heart disease, cancer and strokes in adult life.

Body Image
It's your own subjective idea of how you look, summed up in your reaction to what you see in the mirror. If you're among the millions of Americans who say "Ugh," you have problems with body image. Because such problems are surprisingly potent -- especially in a culture like ours, which places so much emphasis on being thin, young, and beautiful -- negative body image can and has become a serious difficulty for countless women, men, and even children. In small doses, dissatisfaction with your body can cause low self-esteem and low spirits; in large doses, it can contribute to clinical depression and eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.

Parents should show, not tell, kids to eat healthy
The popular saying "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" may be true not only in terms of parent-child similarities in personality and looks, but also in eating habits, new study results suggest. "Attitudes toward food, choices in food selection, and timing of meals are in great part a result of parental modeling of behaviors," according to study lead author Tiffany Tibbs and her colleagues.

Girls with eating disorders fans of fitness magazines
Teenage girls who use dieting tactics such as appetite suppressant pills, laxatives, vomiting after eating or severely restricting their calories are more likely to be heavy readers of women's health and fitness magazines, a team of researchers reports.

Outcome in patients with eating disorders
Eating disorders are disabling, unpredictable, and difficult to treat. We did a prospective 5-year investigation of a representative sample of patients with eating disorders.... Deaths in the study confirm the serious nature of eating disorders.

Nathan asks court to get her daughter help
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's girlfriend Judith Nathan asked a judge to intervene to get professional supervision for her teen-age daughter after the girl was attacked by a dog that mangled her face. The girl is already fighting "anorexia and all of the things a 16-year-old battles in New York City," Nathan said. "I've been taking her to a psychiatrist for anorexia for two years.