Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

While there is growing recognition that (surprise, surprise!) men are not immune to eating disorders, men are still underrepresented in the literature about eating disorders. We know comparatively little about what it is like to be a man with an eating disorder, ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

Why do some people recover anorexia nervosa relatively quickly while others seem to struggle for years or decades? Does it depend on the person’s desire to get better? Their willpower? How much they are willing to fight? Is it just that some try harder than others ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

I remember cutting baby carrots into 6 pieces. Rushing home to eat because I wasn’t “allowed” to eat after 7 pm. Eating the exact portion size-no more, no less. (Oh the rules. I don’t miss them.) Rigid food rules are very common among eating disorder sufferers. ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

Since the late 1990′s, Remuda Ranch Program for Eating Disorders has experienced a 400% increase in patients 40 years of age and older, according to the authors of this paper. However, we don’t really know what the similarities and differences are between women who ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

I’m going to do something different today. I’m going to talk about some of the problems I see in how eating disorders are discussed by some media organizations, ED awareness groups, and ED advocates. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list of everything that’s ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is one of the most commonly used approaches to treat bulimia nervosa, but even CBT (or any treatment) doesn’t work for everyone. Sometimes, even if CBT is helping, a weekly 50 minute therapy session is just not enough. Moreover, ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

They are crazy stories, really. It is hard to believe they are true. A 28-year-old woman with anorexia nervosa complained about weakness and nausea following the insertion of a feeding tube. Her gastroenterologist sent her to the emergency room (ER). The woman was ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

My psychiatrist once compared my life to Dexter. He said I was living a double life. It was the summer before my final year in undergrad and I was working in a neuroscience lab. Yet things were so bad that at one point I was very close to quitting and doing Day ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

When my younger sister first told me she wanted to become a vegetarian, I was worried. My biggest fear was that she would, like I did, develop an eating disorder. In high-school, I didn’t eat meat for roughly 14 months, and though I can’t be sure now of what my ( Read more... )

Originally published at Science of Eating Disorders. Please leave any comments there.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while (or literature on this topic) you know the answer is no. I’ve blogged about this before, but I think it is a topic that needs a lot more coverage because the myths that all anorexia nervosa patients are just afraid of ( Read more... )