How much body fat is the right amount of body fat? Does everyone have the same amount of body fat? What determines how much fat a person stores on their body? These are some “body fat basics” that might be helpful in understanding why it is that we find such a variety of body types when we think of our friends and family. First, it is important to know that…

Have you heard of Orthorexia Nervosa? Regardless of your answer, you have probably seen and heard it in the patients/clients that you see. Introduced by Steven Bratman, orthorexia nervosa is a term used to describe a fixation with eating foods that are considered “pure” in quality. Literally translated, the term means “fixation on righteous eating.” Although it is not an officially recognized medical condition or eating disorder, it can be…

A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation press release this week announced the following: “7% of 5th graders unhappy with body size”. According to a new study, Canadian children as young as 10 years old may benefit from programs to “improve satisfaction with body shape”. The study of 4,254 Nova Scotia fifth graders suggests girls were happiest when thinnest while boys were unhappy when they were too skinny or too fat. The study…

A recent study had this headline, “Exercise can be addicting”. Surprised? Maybe not. Nevertheless most people might not assume that something like exercise, which depending on how you practice it, can make you sweat and leave you exhausted, might actually be addicting. “Excessive running shares similarities with drug-taking behavior,” the researchers wrote in the August issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association. As I say in my…

The basics: FBT encourages parental involvement in adolescent eating disorders recovery. It is an approach that focuses both on weight restoration in anorexia nervosa and the return to normal eating in both anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Parents initially take charge of adolescent weight restoration in the same way that a nurse might in an inpatient or residential treatment program. In time, parents are encouraged to hand the control of eating…

I would like to thank my friends at the Eating Disorders Network of Central Maryland and Eating Disorders Hope for calling my attention to a new research which suggests that overconsumption of fatty, sugary foods leads to changes in brain receptors, increasing opioids in the area that controls food intake. According to new animal research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine which is being presented as I write at…

As many of you may know, research findings indicate that at least half of all people diagnosed with an eating disorder do not meet the full criteria for either of the two primary eating disorders diagnoses (anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa). According to the DSM-IV-TR, “eating disorder not otherwise specified” (EDNOS) is the diagnostic term used to describe clinically significant eating disturbances that fall outside of the complete diagnostic criteria…

I had been seeing Mark for just a couple of weeks. He always wore long sleeve shirts, even in the middle of summer. That should have been my first clue. But Mark had a lot of tattoos on his body, so I wrongly assumed that he had “sleeves” of tattoos that he was simply covering during our sessions. Little did I know that what was actually concealed underneath the sleeves…

I have been traveling a bit the last several weeks… I was struck by how many times I noticed an emaciated frame on the tourist walking past me. Is that because there are more very underweight folks walking around, or because I am primed to notice them more? In one city overseas, my husband and I were enjoying an evening meal when we overheard a young women at the next…

Which is worse: feeling fat or being fat? Well, according to recent studies, feeling fat is far worse than being it. Two studies point toward this conclusion. The first, which can be found at this link (click here), found that the quality of life of adolescents who think they are too fat is worse than for adolescents who really are obese. This was a result of the all Germany Health…