ED Bites

In psychology, mindfulness is a really hot topic. It’s everywhere, and plenty of research is showing that it can be helpful in managing anxiety, depression, and many of the other woes of modern living. Not surprisingly, mindfulness has also become extremely popular in the eating disorder field. We need to learn how to “be in [...]

Besides the (obvious) binge/purge behaviors, one of the most common features of bulimia is self-harm. A recent study of adolescent ED outpatients found that, overall, around 40% of patients engaged in self-injuring behaviors (Peebles, Wilson, & Lock, 2011). When they broke the data down, the researchers found that approximately 60% of patients with BN self-harmed, [...]

When I was a grad student in Baltimore, I lived in a 400 square foot studio apartment. Two of the doors were normal sized (the front door and the one to the bathroom), but one that opened off from the bedroom into the back bathroom area was narrow. As in, I had to be careful when [...]

I recently did a guest blog for Kantor & Kantor about insurance barriers to ED treatment. It’s something I know a little a lot about. I wrote this piece for them, and I’m re-sharing it here. Happy reading!   A few years ago, I received a postcard in the mail from my health insurance company. [...]

The eating disorder community loves personal narratives (especially of celebrities). Generally, the research and advocacy community prefers narratives of people who are well–or at least on their way to wellness. Some of this preference is strategic- sturm und drang stories don’t generally achieve donations or the message of hope that family and friends are looking [...]

Recently, the University of North Carolina Eating Disorders Center announced the beginning of ANGI: the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative. The goal is to gain a better understanding of the genes involved in AN. When I heard this announcement, I immediately wanted to know more. So I got in touch with lead investigator Cynthia Bulik and [...]

It’s a question I get a lot: how many people out there have eating disorders? I can take some reasonable guesses, but there’s not much in the way of good, population-wide prevalence studies. But new estimates of ED incidence (the number of new cases diagnosed in a particular population in a specific time period) and [...]

Search for “eating disorders” on Google News, and I guarantee you that over half of the coverage will be about celebrities with EDs. Some of that is our culture’s serious addiction to celebrities that does no one any good. But some of this coverage has to do with celebrities sharing their stories of EDs or [...]

I’ve written volumes about eating disorders over the years–beginning before I was even diagnosed. Most of the writings were personal, private- scribbled by dim desk light as my roommate (any of them) snoozed in the bunk a few feet away. I didn’t create them as stories. They were more the semi-deranged ravings of someone who [...]

Spend time in an eating disorder treatment center, and you will see some pretty strange stuff go down. Mealtimes, due to the stress-inducing nature of the situation and the presence of food, can bring out some of the most bizarre. We all probably have some amount of unusual food habits, most of which fall into [...]