Recently a reporter contacted me wanting my opinion regarding the recent weight regulations placed on fashion models in Israel. Read more: New Israeli law seeks to fight spread of eating disorders by banning super-thin models
The new laws aim to prevent inducing eating disorders in young girls who seek to emulate emaciated models.
While there is definitely more to anorexia than food and dieting as has been noted extensively on this website, I nevertheless told the reporter that there was a good rationale to do what whatever is possible to discourage the practice of using emaciated women as role models.
My reasoning has to do with the slippery slope phenomenon of anorexia. While there are a variety of things that lead a person to develop an eating disorder, once the body weight gets low enough, a compulsion takes over. The sufferer no longer has free will, and the eating disorder is fuelled by compulsion driven by the starvation.
It certainly does not help to have endless pictures of emaciated bodies plastered all over the media for young girls to emulate.
The anorexia nervosa/compulsive overeating worksheet is a tool for tracking conflicts and the influence that they have on eating disorder behaviours. Stress frequently occurs within relationships with people that we are close to including our family and romantic partners. To keep ourselves and these relationships healthy, it is crucial to respond to the conflicts as soon as we can. (more…)
With the Northern hemisphere summer aproaching, Jaqueline Wilson warns that women with eating disorders should be on guard against bulimia triggered by the swimsuit season. (more…)
This New York Times article is interesting. From our point of view, there is always the hope that anorexia or bulimia won’t recur.
However Abby Ellin has a different perspective: (more…)
American actress Demi Lovato told 20/20 recently that schoolyard bullying led to over-eating when she was eight. (more…)
At the end of 2010 one of the leaders of an effort to warn about the dangers of eating disorders died of anorexia.
Caro’s story is tragic. A potentially long and rewarding life was cut short from this terrible disease. Anorexia is a disorder that is out of control. (more…)
Perhaps this is the dieting breakthrough you’ve been waiting for? (more…)
One of the issues in Social Sciences that is often utilised is whether a problem is necessary and sufficient. While it is easy to confuse the two, one is a necessary condition and the other, given the necessary condition, is sufficient to make it happen. For example, it’s necessary to have food available if someone is going to survive. What’s sufficient, however is the conditions that connect the person and lead to the person over-eating. One stage is necessary; the other one makes the event happen. (more…)
Slim chance by Linley Boniface
This story in the NZ Listener (May 17-23 2008) on male sufferers of eating disorders begins by noting the negative media reaction to the revelation that British politician John Prescott was bulimic.
Dr Fishman was asked to contribute. (more…)
By Cathrin Schaer of the New Zealand Herald
The organisers of New Zealand’s Fashion Week are taking an independent stand in the international debate over which models are too thin to do their jobs. Various international fashion weeks have issued guidelines and rules about how skinny is too skinny for the catwalk. (more…)
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