Eating Disorders
”This Week Models Got Some Meat On Their Bones
- Whitney was the first "plus sized" contestant to win America's Next Top Model!
- Alexandra Michaels — a teen model who was sent home from Paris because she gained five pounds — spoke out against eating disorders in the modeling industry.
- Speaking of dressing up: Jezebel correspondent Emily Gould crashed a Stevie Nicks festival. There were wigs! And gays! And glitter!
- More good news for gays: it is now legal for them to get married in California.
- In other California legal news, Lori Drew got indicted.
- Even California girls should not wear this tacky crap from Urban Outfitters.
- Brats from My Super Sweet Sixteen get deported!
Again, Eating Disorders Are Not Just For Teens
This is Rosemary Pope. She died last month at the age of 49 because her anorexia caused her heart to shrink "to the size of a child's." Pope is not alone: as has been previously and recently reported, anorexia in women over 40 is on the rise. There are a number of theories as to why the number of grown up anorexics is going up. First off, many of these women suffered from anorexia as teens and twenty-somethings and never really recovered. Another possible reason is a growing awareness of the disease which causes more women to self-diagnose their eating disorder. Yet another reason, posits the Guardian, is "the increased pressure on older women to stay young. Surrounded by images of women such as Madonna, Teri Hatcher and Jane Fonda (who has admitted to suffering an eating disorder herself), women are exposed to increasingly unrealistic images of how they should look as they age and are working harder than ever to counter the effects of getting old." More »Former National Champion Says Girls Gymnastics Is Not All It's Chalked Up To Be
In 1986, when Jennifer Sey was 15, she lived on fruit and laxatives. She also won the U.S. National title in gymnastics. Sey has written a book about her experiences as a top-tier gymnast called Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams, which came out this week. In an interview with Salon, Sey discusses her experiences boarding at the Parkettes National Gymnastic Training Center under notoriously-brutal coaches Bill and Donna Strauss, who were hellbent on producing winners by "any means necessary." Sey's responses to interviewer Julia Wallace's questions are satisfyingly balanced — Sey points out that the coaches encouraged disordered-eating and dangerous training (and sometimes sexually abused their charges) but also acknowledges that "I was willing to take [the abuse] because I wanted to win." More »Eating Disorders Officially More Of A Dude Thing Now
The revelation that former British Deputy Premier John Prescott was a raging bulimic who liked to wash five-course banquets down with a few cans of Carnation sweetened condensed milk, and a Big Mac takeout Lo Mein chaser reminded me of ...well, it reminded me how happy I am to have shaken some old habits because I was always terrible at puking, but it reminded me of a topic I have been wanting to discuss for awhile now: At Some Point Men Started Having Worse Eating Issues Than Us. From Prescott to this guy I know who just got one of those incomprehensibly huge book advances to write a memoir about his "andgoyny" i.e. manorexia to at least three out of four of my ex-boyfriends, eating disorders are officially a Dude Thing, and I'm glad we're coming to terms with this as a society because I am frankly sick of all those closeted manorexics thinking no one is onto them. More »Bad Economy = Teen Emo; Blogger Bitches Out Know-It-All Reader
• The recession is turning Juicy-wearing teens into emo kids! • An O.C. teen is in trouble over video of him tossing rabbits and a puppy into the air. • Speaking of pets, a new study reports that Americans' creature companions are full of dangerous chemicals. • Swedish scientists have found that people with good rhythm are the most intelligent. • Are eating disorders contagious? • A bill up for vote in South Carolina would require medical providers to ask pregnant women if they want to see want to view ultrasounds of their embryos before undergoing an abortion. • A blogger responds to nit-picky grammarians; bloggers everywhere rejoice.France's Attempt To Ban "Inciting Thinness" Incites Jeers From Some
The lower house of French Parliament voted in favor of a bill today that outlawed "publicly inciting extreme thinness," reports the AP. What does "inciting thinness" even mean? Well the definition, according to law author Valery Boyer, is pretty vague. The new bill would allow judges to imprison or fine offenders almost $50,000 if found guilty of "inciting others to deprive themselves of food" to an "excessive" degree, says Boyer. The law is ostensibly targeted at magazines, advertisers and the fashion industry — but how can a judge definitively determine if someone has "incited" someone else into anorexia? Writer Devorah Lauter points out that there is not a one-to-one correlation between media images of extreme thinness and the onset of disordered eating. Marleen S. Williams, a psychology professor at BYU who researches the effect of media on anorexics, tells Lauter that this new proposed law is like "putting your finger in one hole in the dike, but there are other holes, and it's much more complex than that." More »
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Sometimes It's Mom -- Not Media -- Who Gives Girls Eating Disorders
An episode of Intervention aired last night that featured a very sick family. Caylee is a 21-year-old who is addicted to heroin and cocaine, and also has had an eating disorder since she was a young girl. It seems as though the entire family blames her body issues on her mother Christy, who has suffered from various eating disorders of her own — a combination of anorexia, bulimia, and excessive exercise — for the past 35 years. When Caylee was about 8 years old, Christy let her know that she was getting pudgy and began policing the food she ate, guilting her into avoiding French fries, and instilling in her a fear of food and body fat that she's struggled with her entire life and turning her to hard drugs. The family arranged an intervention for her, but when interventionist Jeff VanVonderen got a load of Christy, he decided that she needed to be in treatment as well. Clip above.
Related: Parents In Denial About Children's Weight Problems [Science Daily]
weighty issues
Author: Some Orthodox Men Want Their Brides Below A Size Eight
In some Orthodox Jewish sects, women must wear sleeves past the elbow and skirts (never trousers) past the knees. Slits are verboten (those are for harlots!): kick pleats need only apply. Married women must always cover their heads; most shave their hair off and wear wigs. You'd think with all this covering up, many would have a healthier body image. You'd think wrong! Jewcy.com points us to a Jewish Daily Forward article about anorexia and bulimia among some Orthodox women. According to the Forward, a possible reason for eating disorders amongst ultra-religious Jews is the practice of arranged marriage. "Very often, young men looking for brides in the Orthodox community call a girl's parents and ask for her dress size." If it's over a size 8, says the Forward, she may be headed for spinster city. More »
annals of anorexia
Should Sites Like Facebook Ban Pro-Ana Internet Groups?
Happy National Eating Disorders Awareness Week! An eating disorder charity is calling on MySpace and Facebook to do something about pro-anorexia groups. "We believe that the sites should act responsibly," says Susan Ringwood of B-eat, an eating disorder charity. "They have acted to remove other content that is seen as 'dangerous', or could encourage young people to do dangerous things." Research shows that young women exposed to pro-ana websites feel more negative, have lower self-esteem and are more likely to compare their bodies with other women, reports BBC News. But a spokesperson for MySpace explains: "It's often very tricky to distinguish between support groups for users who are suffering from eating disorders and groups that might be termed as 'pro' anorexia or bulimia." More »
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