"Bernarod Carducci, director of Indiana University Southeast's Shyness Research Institute, calls it the Scarlett O'Hara syndrome. In a famous scene in Gone with the Wind, Scarlett's maid tells her not to eat at a barbeque if she wants to uphold her reputation."

Labels: awareness, prevention, shyness

"As it survives online and increasingly underground, this movement poses serious public health challenges. As many as 70 percent of adolescent girls seek health information online. Of adolescent girls viewing pro-ana sites, 96 percent reported learning new weight loss or purging techniques; 69 percent of these viewers reported using these weight-reduction strategies."

Labels: prevention, pro-ana

"...29-year-old Nese, who is in Scotland next week for a fashion show, is living proof if you actually learn to love your curves you can still earn a fortune as a model and stay healthy. Nese says: ‘There's too much pressure on young girls to be a certain shape or size. They should be allowed to enjoy life, enjoy food and let go. It's about being in shape, looking good and feeling healthy."

Labels: body_type, fashion, healthy_eating

"Guest speaker Professor Bob Palmer... tackled the subject from a wider perspective. 'Eating disorders have an "image problem". They are often portrayed as either an exotic rarity afflicting and sometimes killing young women at the threshold of lives that had been full of promise or as the expression of the foolishness of adolescent girls who take to excess the essentially trivial concerns with appearance and slimness that are widespread in our societies. Neither picture is accurate. Eating disorders are neither rare nor trivial."

Labels: awareness, prevention, treatment

"Criticism was building even before several studies mentioned Bratz dolls by name. This year, the American Psychological Association piled on, citing Bratz in a report that analyzed about 300 studies on the relationship between media images and mental health."

Labels: behaviors, influences, role_models

"The study showed that almost 4% of middle-school girls receiving only their regular health education began vomiting or abusing laxatives or diet pills, but just 1% of the girls in the 5-2-1-Go! program did so."

Labels: exercise, healthy_eating, prevention

Labels: family, healthy_eating, students

"As a result of the Governor's action, a Child Performers Advisory Board will be created oversee the development of guidelines to ensure that child actors suffering from or at risk for eating disorders are identified and have access to treatment. Appointed by the Commissioner of Labor, along with the Commissioners of Health and Mental Health, board members will also develop educational materials to generate awareness and inform actors and models about eating disorders."

Labels: awareness, legislation, prevention

"'Are there certain things in food that act on the brain and set up a classic addictive process, like tolerance, withdrawal and craving?', asks psychologist Kelly Brownell, who organized a recent scientific meeting on food addiction at Yale University. While the research is still scanty, the evidence that exists 'is extremely interesting and provocative, and suggests to me that something is there,' Brownell says."

Labels: addiction, brain_chemistry, research

"In the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry [the] team... shows that almost 40 percent of participants in family-based treatment had stopped binging and purging compared to only 18 percent of those who received... the standard therapy. Six-months after treatment, almost 30 percent of participants who received family-based treatment were still abstinent compared to only 10 percent of participants who received supportive psychotherapy..."

Labels: family, support, therapy

"As a result of the Governor's action, a Child Performers Advisory Board will be created oversee the development of guidelines to ensure that child actors suffering from or at risk for eating disorders are identified and have access to treatment. Appointed by the Commissioner of Labor, along with the Commissioners of Health and Mental Health, board members will also develop educational materials to generate awareness and inform actors and models about eating disorders."

Labels: awareness, legislation, prevention

"The National Institute on Media and the Family estimates that 53 percent of 13-year-olds are unhappy with their body image. Research shows girls with negative self-esteem are more likely to be depressed or anxious and practice unhealthy behaviors, like smoking, poor eating habits, dieting and/or eating disorders."

Labels: body_image, hormones, puberty

"After looking at the anorexia-promoting Web site, young women had worse moods, worse social self-esteem, and a worse sense of their ability to cope with their appearance than those who viewed one of the other two websites [on fashion and home décor]. They also thought of themselves as heavier and said they were more likely to exercise and think about their weight in the near future."

Labels: body_image, pro-ana, self-esteem

"She tested the scale on 242 college students, and found that people with high ARS scores were likely to base their self-worth on outward appearance and to rate themselves as physically unattractive...'Both men and women who reported being more sensitive to appearance-based rejection were preoccupied with their body and weight in unhealthy ways,' Park said..."

Labels: apperances, body_image, rejection

"Seven years ago 'the idea of seeing a 9- or would have been 10-year-old anorexic would have been shocking and prompted frantic calls to my colleagues. Now we’re seeing kids this age all the time,' [David] Rosen says. There's no single explanation for the declining age of onset, although greater awareness on the part of parents certainly plays a role."

Labels: anorexia, development, young_girls

"She told OK! Magazine: 'I might adopt because I can't have children, because of all the internal damage I've done to myself with the anorexia. I found out about it a while ago and it is a shame. It's inevitable though, with anorexia.'"

Labels: anorexia, effects_of_eating_disorders, infertility

"Jessica Samford Conley, director of the Brentwood facility, explained the Renfrew Center’s three-pronged approach. Patients at the center interface with psychiatrists, therapists, and nutritionists."

Labels: support, therapy, treatment