carrnival of eating disorders #17

welcome to the 17th carnival of eating disorders, where we look at blog posts that deal with anorexia, bulimia, exercise bulimia, overeating, orthorexia, EDNOS, body image and other related topics.

i have to confess that after all this time, the name “carnival” of eating disorders still rings funny in my ears. thesaurus.com suggests these alternative words for carnival:

“carny, celebration, circus, fair, feast, festival, fete, fiesta, holiday, jamboree, mardi gras, merrymaking, revelry, show, sideshow”

hm. “the mardi gras of eating disorders”? how about “the feast of eating disorders”?

well, maybe not quite. what do you think? should we get a new name? if so, what do you suggest?

in the meantime, this is what we have on the roster for this month:

obesity and breast cancer
like every friday, something on cancer:

obese women tend to have a much more aggressive disease and that means a lower survival rate. in a study, dr. massimo cristofanilli at the university of texas m.d. anderson cancer center, observed 606 women with advanced breast cancer … they classified the women by body mass index into three groups, normal, overweight and obese. obese women had a 56.8 percent survival rate after five years, 56.3 for overweight women and 67.4 for normal weight women. reportedly the fat tissues are to blame for the more aggressive form of the disease and for the likelihood of recurrence.

read here for the rest.

children with eating disorders

australian children as young as six are presenting at hospitals with eating disorders so advanced that almost half require forced feeding to save their lives, a study has found. new data has confirmed that anorexia and starvation are becoming increasingly common among children, with a third of cases seen in under 18-year-olds now occurring in kids under 13.

overexercising

when my mental health started declining in 2004, i used exercise to cope. actually, i over-used exercise and became addicted to it, compelled to engage in it. my passion for exercise began quite innocently, with the occasional short run or trip to the gym. before long, running to and from the gym became the routine.gradually, however, i began challenging myself and soon enough created a network of people who enjoyed physical fitness and fed my growing preoccupation. i pushed myself to keep up with this athletic crowd. eventually i came to rely on the thrill and escape from the feelings of unworthiness that physical fitness offered.

blondbombchelle talks about her realization that she is dealing with an eating disorder, which also includes exercising too much:

after years of yo-yo dieting and struggling with weight and poor body image i finally recognized early this year, with the help of books, a health coach and other medical professionals, that i suffered from a binge eating disorder complete with a side of exercise bulimia and super-sized diet obsession.

… and gives us these insightful words:

i have been consuming solids for over 32 years now, but am really just beginning to learn how to eat.

anorexia and suicide
josh hill discusses a new study in australia about suicides by people suffering from anorexia. it is a well-researched article that also points to a previous finding:

a previous study of about 250 women suffering from anorexia in 2003 at harvard university showed that the risk of death by suicide among anorexic women was 57 times what would be expected from a healthy woman.

the blessings of bulimia

you think i’m kidding, right? well, i’m not. there are blessings to be found, if one is willing to look. first of all, right at the start, bulimia is a loud warning signal. something is very wrong and we are trying to cope. it is a call for help, and some are fortunate enough to have it heard early on. deep inside, you know something isn’t right. you are looking out for yourself, but you’re not in a position to do it all alone. you’re doing the best you can.

food and body image – when you’re not so young anymore
adventures in reading reviews a book about – well, about women like me, i guess

the day i ate whatever i wanted and other small acts of liberation [is] the latest collection from elizabeth berg. this was my first time reading anything by berg and i found the collection humorous, thoughtful, and nice.

the thirteen stories scrutinize mostly middle-aged-women’s relationships with food, body image, aging and family.

guilt and eating
at small steps to health (which has the great tag line, “we do not take orders from a cookie!”), asithi has some good ideas about moving away from guilt after a mistake:

there is no need to feel guilt for a mistake. we do not need to double our workout time today because we miss our workout yesterday. after all, it is not as if we are going eat 10 pounds of spinach today because we have not been eating them for the last year. instead focus your energy on how to not make that mistake again.

and more: barbara goes into the medical/scientific explanation of being overweight and in a post that is not directly related to our topic but is nevertheless of interest to us here, d. singh asks whether google healthy is health for us. can we entrust our health to google? finally, the middle man presents man flu, a story about a strange disease that left “middle-aged, midland-born, middle manager from the UK” with a phobia of eating in public for years.

that’s what i have to report for this edition of the carnival of eating disorders.

i’m going to take a short hiatus from this carnival and will be back with the next carnival of eating disorders on july 31. once again, i’d like to invite anyone interested to host this carnival – and of course to submit any and all interesting articles here!

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