Tanith Belbin is one of the foremost ice dancers in the world. She and her partner, Ben Agosto, won a silver medal in the 2006 Olympics, but Belbin looks back on those Olympics with something other than joy. She’s embarrassed by photographs that show spindly legs and a jutting chest bone.

Four years later, according to Juliet Macur's Feb. 16 New York Times article, Belbin has overcome a history of unhealthy eating practices, and she and her partner are hoping for an even more impressive result in the 2010 Olympic Games:

She can thank one of her coaches, Natalia Linichuk, for that. ...

Linichuk and Gennadi Karponosov, who were the 1980 Olympic ice dancing champions, began coaching Belbin and Agosto in the summer of 2008, when Belbin and Agosto left suburban Detroit for a fresh start.

Linichuk took one look at the 5-foot-6, 105-pound Belbin and said, "You need to gain 10 pounds." She said more muscle would help Belbin skate faster and more fluidly. ...

As it turned out, Linichuk also ended up saving Belbin from a problem that has long plagued figure skaters: disordered eating. Often not as severe as eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, disordered eating involves irregular eating habits that can be fueled by a distorted body image. Belbin said she had struggled with those issues since puberty.

Labels: binge eating, purging, self-esteem, self-image_issues

Mia St. John is a boxing champion, mixed martial arts competitor, model, author, and businesswomen. She is also a survivor of a teen eating disorder.

A June 23 article on the boxing website The Sweet Science addresses St. John's struggle with an eating disorder, a challenge that she describes in her new fitness book, The Knockout Workout:

She tells that she had a "love-hate relationship with food and with her body," brought on by the insecurity of living with an alcoholic father who was "an angry and oftentimes violent drunk."

"At age 13, I became obsessed with my weight," she writes. "For every pound I lost, I felt as if I had deposited one more dollar in the bank. The skinnier I became, the better I felt about myself. Weight was the only thing I could control. By simply focusing on my weight and the caloric content of every known food, I could escape everything that was a mess in my life.

"I had so many reasons to self-destruct: my father’s unpredictable and explosive behavior, kids hurling racial insults at me and worse, calling me fat. I started to blame and resent my mother for being Mexican. I drank every day, all day, and not surprisingly was flunking my classes. Then, as if to torture myself further, I began to binge and purge. I ate whatever food I desired and then purged it by taking laxatives, throwing up, or even overexercising."

St. John is also the founder of the El Saber Es Poder Foundation, which her website describes as an effort "to empower Latinos by providing schools with better supplies, equipment and development of programs to help further education."

Labels: binge eating, celebrities, purging

It sounds so simple: When you are hungry, you eat. When you feel full, you stop. But for the ten million Americans who struggle with eating disorders, it's anything but easy. Take, for example, a young woman who was arrested for stealing from a California grocery story. The suspect had stolen $10 worth of candy bars and other sweets and consumed it all - more than 4,000 calories - in 30 minutes.

"The suspect, Katie, was sobbing, very ashamed, and extremely remorseful. Katie, a student at a local community college, related that she suffered from bulimia nervosa. She had not intended to engage in theft while in the story, but became overwhelmed by anxiety and had an un-ignorable craving to eat... She then was compelled to rid herself of the calories and had induced vomiting in the employee's bathroom."

Though anorexia gets more attention, bulimia is actually more prevalent - affecting one in seven females ages 12-25. The medical consequences of bulimia - a disorder marked by bingeing, then purging, in response to feelings of depression, anxiety or worthlessness - are immense, and anyone who exhibits symptoms of the disorder needs to seek immediate help. Source: Officer.com.

Labels: bulimia, purging, shame

The results of a new study suggest that a person who uses a variety of purging methods may have a more severe eating disorder than one who purges just as often but uses the same method every time. The study involved 76 women with purging disorder and 35 women who did not engage in the practice.

"The individuals who used multiple purging methods exhibited greater body image disturbance, were more restrained in eating, and were more concerned about eating, the researchers found."

Researchers also found that women who purged more frequently, but used the same method, were more prone to depression, anxiety and personality disorders. The findings could help doctors better understand the severity of an eating disorder, which would allow them to adapt treatment accordingly. Source: Reuters

Labels: body_image, purging, severity

A team of researchers from the University of Iowa at Iowa City has found that the types of purging methods used by someone with an eating disorder may indicate the severity of the disorder. The team also found that someone who purges frequently using the same method was more likely to suffer from anxiety and/or depression.

"The individuals who used multiple purging methods exhibited greater body image disturbance, were more restrained in eating, and were more concerned about eating, researchers found."

Keel and her colleagues evaluated the behaviors of 76 women with purging disorders and 35 with healthy means of weight control. The ones who used multiple purging methods didn't binge eat more frequently, and the ones who used the same method repeatedly were more likely to be diagnosed with a personality disorder. The research team hopes their findings will give doctors better indicators of the severity of a person's disorder.

Labels: binge eating, purging, severity

Pamela Keel, of the University of Iowa, recently completed research on a little-known eating disorder simply known as purging. Purging is different from bulimia, in that women with purging disorders don't binge-eat. Despite that, they feel the need to purge, even if they've only eaten a small amount of food.

"The dangers of purging disorder are similar to those of bulimia: psychological problems, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances that can affect the heart and kidneys, and potential dental problems because of self-induced vomiting."

Keel conducted research from 2001 to 2005, during which time she studied three different categories of women: those with bulimia, those with symptoms of purge disorder and those with no eating disorder at all. If continued study supports purging as a separate disorder, it could cause the American Psychiatric Association to revise its eating disorder criteria, which could help doctors to adequately screen for purge disorders.

Labels: awareness, dangers_of_eating_disorders, purging