carnival of eating disorders #10

welcome to this month’s carnival of eating disorders, a reader’s digest of blog posts about mental health issues related to problems such as anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, binge eating disorder, food addiction, exercise anorexia, as well as body image.

parents and anorexia
let’s start with a very controversial issue: pro-anorexia mothers. ex-model, ex-anorexic “mamavision” refers to a group of mothers on livejournal who are practicing anorexics:

there is no way in hell a mother can be pro ana, and be a healthy positive influence on her child. it’s impossible. these women who are are choosing this selfish, dangerous, vain lifestyle shouldn’t be parents. i believe if a social worker were to see their online behavior, their parental ability would be in jeopardy.

since i see eating disorders as a mental health issue, i have a hard time thinking of these mothers as “choosing a lifestyle”. just like people who are living with obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and even addictions don’t choose to live like that. in many situations they might tell themselves that it is a choice; it makes us feel more powerful if we think we choose something. – but i digress; that’s material for another post.

at any rate, mamavision’s opinion is worth noting. at the other end of the spectrum, we find a very well put-together video by laura collins, who interviewed a number of eating disorder specialists on the question of whether parents are the cause of eating disorders.

i’d be very interested in your opinion on this topic.

bulimia
living in stigma presents some research on purging habits.

whether or not a person with an eating disorder uses more than one method of purging may be a better indicator of the severity of the disorder than how frequently purging occurs, results of a study suggest.

but purging frequency was linked to other, related psychological problems, dr. pamela k. keel of the university of iowa in iowa city and her colleagues found. “purging frequency was significantly associated with depression and anxiety,” keel told reuters health, “whereas multiple purging methods were significantly associated with eating disorder severity. so, each feature provided unique and clinically useful information.”

body image
hungry guy was the very first eating disorders related blog i read on a frequent basis, so i’m always particularly interested in learning about his journey. the post we’re highlighting today contains some reflections on assumptions about appearance such as

  • the 1st thing that people will notice about me is what’s wrong with my appearance.
  • if i could look just as i wish, my life would be much happier.
  • my appearance is responsible for much of what has happened to me in my life.
  • i should always do whatever i can to look my best.
  • the only way i could ever like my looks would be to change them.

food addiction
jolynn braley from the fit shack shares some findings on fast food addictions:

i came across an article about a study done on lab rats that demonstrated food creating the same brain changes that opioids do! this study covered the effect that the combination of sugar, fat, and salt had on the brains of the lab rats. the brain reacted the same as it did to heroin or morphine.

where do you find this combination of sugar, fat, and salt? in fast food of course!

these are the feature posts for this round. other contributions included:

do you have an interesting blog post about eating disorders?

are you recovering from anorexia or bulima and would like to share your insights?

have you dug up a useful research article on eating disorders, in whatever field of study: psychology, biology, neuroscience, sociology or any other field?

do you have some ideas on how to deal with body image problems?

what about a review of a book, movie or other creative endeavour on the topic?

what are your insights and experiences around overeating and food addiction?

all these and more are great additions to this carnival. so if you have something, please submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of eating disorders using our carnival submission form. the next carnival of eating disorders will be published on november 30.

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