The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) released their newly developed patient bill of rights on Wednesday. The document is part of an initiative launched in Washington to help families get access to better care for family members with eating disorders.

"Entitled the Worldwide Charter for Action on Eating Disorders, the Charter calls for a partnership among patients, families and their treatment team to ensure the highest quality care for every person undergoing treatment for anorexia nervosa (which has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder), bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder."

The NEDA and AED are seeing support for the charter from clinicians, state policymakers, and families affected by eating disorders. Source: EarthTimes

Labels: health_care, patient_rights, treatment

A federal judge in Newark, New Jersey has ruled that a class-action lawsuit against the Aetna insurance company can proceed. The lawsuit specifically targets Aetna's policy on eating disorders and seeks to force them to improve their benefits coverage.

"The crucial issue... is whether eating disorders are biologically based mental illnesses (BBMI), for which insureds are entitled under contracts and state laws around the country to a higher level of coverage than is provided for purely mental conditions."

At the center of the lawsuit is father Frank De Vito, whose daughter was denied coverage for eating disorder treatment. Aetna called the treatment "not medically necessary." Read more at Law.com.

Labels: health_care, insurance, mental_illness

The Center for Young Women's Health, part of the Children's Hospital in Boston has created a website that includes a general guide on eating disorders aimed at teenagers. The guide breaks down the symptoms of anorexia and other disorders into easy-to-understand language and offers "next steps" for a teen who thinks she or a friend may have an eating disorder.

"If you think that you may have an eating disorder, it is very important that you talk to your health care provider immediately! If you are too nervous or scared to contact your health care provider on your own, try talking to an adult who is someone you trust like a parent, teacher, relative, or family friend."

The guide also helps teens understand how eating disorders are treated and what to expect if they or someone they knows is treated for an eating disorder. Read more at YoungWomensHealth.org

As someone dealing with an eating disorder needs treatment sooner than later, teens who are doing drugs or binge drinking also need immediate help. Unfortunately, parents often wait thinking their teen's risky behaviors will simply go away. Learn more about why you shouldn't wait to get your teen help.

Labels: awareness, health_care, support

As a psychiatrist, Dr. Harvey Widore, M.D. has had many patients who struggled with eating disorders. In this multi-part article series, he shares the story of one girl - Debbie - who weighed less than 100 pounds when he first met her.

"...when she walked into my office for our initial meeting, Debbie's legs looked like sticks. Protruding above the jacket, her skull-like head barely balanced on her spinal column, the virtual absence of neck muscles giving her the appearance of a bobble-head doll. Had she taken off the jacket I would have seen that her body had no breasts, no stomach, no buttocks - all victims of the soft tissue and muscle atrophy that follows severe protein deprivation. Debbie looked like a concentration camp victim, but the agent of her starvation was not a concentration camp guard. It was Debbie herself."

Many in the medical community believe that the number of deaths attributed to eating disorders is too low. Often, the cause of death is said to be cardiac arrest or some other condition which is actually brought on by the eating disorder.

Looking for an eating disorders treatment program? Visit our directory of resources to find a treatment program for eating disorders today.

Labels: anorexia, health_care, starvation

Researchers at the University of Alberta recently studied eating disorder articles published in magazines like Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Seventeen. They wanted to find out what these types of magazines were saying about eating disorders, and whether the information they were publishing was helpful or harmful.

"...whereas most articles mentioned the exact menu used by eating disorder sufferers when they were ill, fewer than 15 percent gave a similar description of what sufferers ate after they had recovered. Similarly, a sufferer's weight when they were ill was mentioned more often than their healthy weight."

The researchers often found that many articles talked about weight loss strategies used by people suffering from anorexia, while barely more than half mentioned the potentially fatal dangers of the disorder. The obvious bent towards highlighting the disorders and not the dangers or the recovery has researchers believing that people attempting to recover from eating disorders should avoid these types of magazines altogether.

NorthStar Center addiction treatment programs offer help to young adults who have completed rehab but still not ready to be on their own. Learn more about their drug abuse recovery program at northstarcenter.com.

Labels: health_care, media_influences, motivation

Laxatives are common ammunition in the weight loss arsenals of people with eating disorders. The belief is that a stimulant laxative like Ex-Lax speeds up weight loss by purging food (and the accompanying calories) from the body quickly. Not only is that untrue, but the misuse of stimulant laxatives can severely damage one's body.

"Damage to nerve endings in the colon is also a very real concern because these nerve endings are what the body relies on to excrete waste from the body. If the stimulant laxatives render these nerve endings useless, then the result could be a total loss of control over bowel movements and even leaking of the rectum. Taking extra laxatives to try to resolve this problem could permanently damage nerve endings."

Because stimulant laxatives work on the colon, which is at the end of the digestive system, most calories have already been absorbed. So the use of laxatives not only increases, dramatically, a person's health risks, but the desired result (purging of food and calories before they're absorbed into the body) is medically impossible. Read more online.

Teen drug and alcohol abuse can be symtoms of a larger issue. Find out more at DrugRehabTreatment.com.

Labels: dangers_of_eating_disorders, health_care, long_term_effects