Life is often too fast-paced for us to stop and really enjoy what we're eating. Eating isn't an experience as much as a necessity. Sasha Loring, a psychotherapist at Duke University, says that taking time to savor and enjoy food could combat eating disorders.

"In a randomized controlled trial at Duke and Indiana State University, binge eaters who participated in a nine-week mindful-eating program went from bingeing an average of four times a week to once, and reduced their levels of insulin resistance."

The key to mindful eating is to slow down and take notice of what you're eating; take a bite, put down your fork, and pay attention to the smell, texture, and taste of your food. Another key is to approach food "non-judgmentally" - that is, try to leave guilt, fear, and anxiety at the door. Source: The Wall Street Journal

Learn more about Mindful Eating at Weight Loss Central.

Labels: binge_eating, meals, motivation

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.

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Labels: health_care, media_influences, motivation

A new national survey by Harvard University of 3,000 people indicates that eating disorders are more common among males than people may think.

Researchers found that 25% of all those suffering from anorexia and bulimia and 40% of binge eaters are boys and men.

Most people associate eating disorders with females, which is the reason that parents, doctors, coaches and others do not identify such problems in boys. Males with eating disorders have a different motivation. Girls want to be thin and beautiful; boys want to be fit and "buff." Males often develop eating disorders to meet weight requirements for sports like wrestling or for military service.

The researchers also found that males are more likely to be overweight and older than girls are when they develop such disorders.

Labels: manorexia, motivation, sports