An overweight bride-to-be who wanted to lose an extreme amount of weight before her wedding died after spending 11 weeks on a crash diet. Samantha Clowe, 34, collapsed from heart failure after eating just 530 calories a day for nearly three months.

A Sept. 10 article in the British paper Daily Mail provided the following details:

An inquest in Leeds was inconclusive about whether the controversial LighterLife diet - which restricts people to 530 calories a day for a maximum of 12 weeks - played a part in her death.

But this is the second reported case in three years of a woman who has died from similar heart failure after losing significant amounts of weight on the LighterLife plan.

Home Office pathologist Dr Alfredo Walker said a post-mortem examination failed to establish a cause of death, adding: "But it may be related to her low calorie diet and weight loss."

West Yorkshire Coroner David Hinchliff said it was "highly likely" Miss Clowe died from cardiac arrhythmia - a potentially fatal condition involving an irregular heart beat.

Professor John Garrow, a retired obesity and nutrition expert, told the Daily Mail that in individuals who follow a highly restrictive diet, the heart is in danger of being "reduced to a stage at which it can no longer adequately perform what it is there for, namely pumping the blood and you get these disorders of rhythm."

Labels: dieting, calorie_restriction

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It will be harder to buy junk food in New York and Massachusetts starting in 2009. Both states will require restaurants to post calorie counts on their menu items.

New York Gov. David Paterson is backing three other proposals that are designed to encourage healthy eating:

1. Prohibiting restaurants from offering foods that contain trans-fats.
2. Banning public schools from selling junk food.
3. Requiring consumers to pay an 18-percent tax on sugary sodas.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick wants schools to send home "weight report cards" to parents of children in the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth grades. Under the Patrick plan, parents with overweight and obese children would receive advice on nutrition and exercise.

Labels: calorie_restriction, junk-food, restaurants

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In an effort to reduce the risk of eating disorders among its students, Harvard University is removing calorie counters from its dining hall.

"The school posted a blog on the issue: 'We need to address the challenge a quiet and surprisingly large contingent of our community faces with eating disorders. Those individuals place an undue emphasis on calories...'"

Student response was mixed, with some thinking it's a good idea, and others believing that students with eating disorders will simply get calorie information elsewhere. Source: CW56 News (Cambridge, MASS)

Labels: colleges, support, calorie_restriction

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For Harriet Brown's daughter, the calorie counting that accompanied her eating disorder didn't stop with recovery. On the contrary, she found herself having to track her intake just as diligently as ever in order to re-gain and maintain a healthy weight.

"Like many recovering anorexics, Kitty has a fast metabolism that seems to burn calories at a higher than usual rate. So she needs to eat more than the average teenage girl to maintain her weight, and she will probably need to do this for years to come."

One of the challenges of recovering from an eating disorder is that the patient often has to break every food-related rule he or she established. Fruits and vegetables are good, but so are ice cream, potato chips, and other calorie-dense foods. Given that we live in a society that has clearly defined which foods are "good" or "bad", it can be a difficult shift to make, and parental support is vital.

Aspen Ranch, a residential treatment program in Utah, offers an equine therapy program that helps troubled teens work through their negative emotions and behaviors.

Labels: calorie_restriction, nutrition, healthy_eating

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Prader-Willi Syndrome is a genetic disorder that causes a person to feel hungry all the time. The syndrome affects the hypothalamus region of the brain, which controls - among other things - feelings of fullness or hunger. Because someone with Prader-Willi always feels hungry, a serious eating disorder is developed that can cause life-threatening obesity.

"This problem is made worse because people with Prader-Willi syndrome use fewer calories than those without the syndrome because they have less muscle mass. The combination of eating massive amounts of food and not burning enough calories can lead to life-threatening obesity if the diet is not kept under strict control."

Other symptoms of Prader-Willi include decreased muscle mass, slower development of motor and language skills, and cognitive problems. Read more at NICHD.NIH.gov.

Labels: calorie_restriction, genes, hunger

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Recent studies have some in the medical community raising their eyebrows and asking hard questions. The studies focus on a type of "diet" called Calorie Restriction and claim that reducing caloric intake may slow down the aging process. But is Calorie Restriction actually an unrecognized type of eating disorder?

"Although we don't know yet whether the longevity benefits extend to humans, a number of people have put themselves on draconian diets in the hope of living loner. They refer to their regimen as CR (calorie restriction) or CRON (calorie restriction with optimal nutrition), and they call themselves CRONies... Like anorexics, CRONies discover in starvation an apparent solution to their problems: a source of energy (at least at first), a sense of purpose, and relief from stress."

Thus far, no one from the eating disorder field has adequately explained the difference between calorie restriction and anorexia; why one is an accepted type of diet while the other is an eating disorder.

Read more at Slate.com.

Labels: anorexia, dieting, calorie_restriction

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Some teenage girls want to find Prince Charming; others want to take on the world and be the first woman president.

Crystal Renn wanted to have a gap between her upper thighs like the models she admired.

• Crystal's diet became steamed vegetables three times a day with a protein shake at lunch, and sugar-free game and Diet Coke for snacks.
• When she went out for dinner, she would tell the server, "I'll have the lettuce."
• She joined two gyms so people would not notice how often she worked out.
• On weekends, she worked out four hours a day. She frequently passed out from exhaustion.
• Later she deplored how she looked in her pictures at that time, writing that her face had a blank stare, probably because all she was thinking about was food.

Crystal has overcome her disordered eating, and now has a successful career as a plus-size model. But the pain and suffering she endured in pursuit of an unrealistic (and unhealthy) body is all too familiar to the tens of thousands of women and men who remain in the throes of

dangerous diet plans

and other forms of disordered eating.

 

Labels: body image, dieting, calorie_restriction

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