Qualitative

Interpreting Anti-Obesity Campaigns with a History of Disordered Eating

Andrea 28 Comments

Advertisements bemoaning the evils of obesity, begging us to eat healthier and to exercise, surround us every day. Big corporations and governments alike have jumped on the anti-obesity bandwagon, crafting public service announcements aimed at correcting what is being framed as an epidemic. For many, these messages are likely generic reminders to strive for health, if they are noticed at all. But what about individuals with eating disorders? A recent (2012) study by Catling & Malson (full text available here) looked into how a group of women with a history of disordered eating interpreted anti-obesity messages.

I was particularly drawn to this article, having personally felt rage at some of the overly simplified messages that circulate around obesity and “health.” Particularly when I was early in recovery, I often felt as though I was swimming against the current in my attempts to do just the opposite to what these … Continue reading →

Transitioning from Adolescent to Adult Eating Disorder Treatment Programs: What Are The Challenges?

Andrea 3 Comments

Navigating health service systems can seem daunting, to say the least. Making phone calls, getting doctor appointments and referrals, attending intake appointments, and preparing oneself for treatment can be both mentally and physically draining. When children and adolescents develop eating disorders, their parents become the main navigators in this scenario, making decisions and arrangements for their under-18-year-olds. But what happens when these adolescents reach the age of 18, and still require and/or desire treatment?

A recent Canadian qualitative study by Gina Dimitropoulos and colleagues (2013) explored the transition between pediatric and adult treatment for eating disorders to identify ways to facilitate smooth and effective transitions. To explore the tensions surrounding transitions, the authors conducted focus groups with service providers from both pediatric and adult treatment programs, as well as interviews with community practitioners.

GROUNDED THEORY

This study used grounded theory (more in-depth discussion here), a qualitative approach that … Continue reading →

Dancing Your Way to Recovery from Anorexia Nervosa

Andrea 9 Comments

The idea of including dance and movement in interventions for eating disorders may seem somewhat controversial; generally, exercise and physical activity are discouraged for individuals recovering from eating disorders. Including dance in therapeutic interventions might raise a few eyebrows given the links between appearance-oriented athletic endeavors such as ballet and gymnastics and the development of eating disorders.

However, some therapists and scholars interested in alternative therapies for eating disorders have suggested that certain forms of movement therapy may help individuals with eating disorders connect to their bodies in a different, more positive way.

In 2011, two such scholars from Portugal, Padrão & Coimbra, published a 6-month pilot intervention for individuals hospitalized for anorexia nervosa (AN) based around body movement.

Their aims were twofold:

  1. Find out more about the links between body movement and bodily experience in individuals with AN
  2. Observe the ways in which individuals with AN move
… Continue reading →

Patient Perspectives on Anorexia, Treatment, and Therapeutic Alliance

Andrea 5 Comments

Dear Science of Eating Disorders readers, please welcome Andrea, our newest contributor! Below is her introduction and first post.

Hello SEDs readers, my name is Andrea and I’m excited to be contributing to the blog. I have an undergraduate degree in sociology and I am currently a Masters student studying family relations and human development. My research is looking at the experiences of young women in recovery from eating disorders, and uses qualitative methods including narrative interviews and digital stories to explore stories of eating disorders and recovery. I am particularly interested in stories that fall outside of the “norm,” as I feel that we sometimes hear a limited, scripted story of what it means to be someone who has had and recovered from an eating disorder.

I myself am recovered from ED-NOS, and I am happy to be making meaning from my experiences by exploring eating disorders in an … Continue reading →

Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Eating Disorders: Women's Experiences

Tetyana 7 Comments

There is a common misconception that eating disorders somehow disappear during pregnancy; that becoming a mother stops all those silly worries about being slim and attractive. This is not necessarily the case, and unfortunately, there is a lot of stigma associated with talking about disordered eating behaviours during pregnancy. Openly admitting to it is an invitation, it seems, to being called selfish and vain. The implication is that eating disorders are something only young girls struggle with, and that pregnancy and motherhood are such big and important things that they should be enough to overcome an eating disorder.

Over recent decades, eating disorders have entered the public’s consciousness. They are regularly discussed, and often trivialized, in the popular media, depicted as no more than dieting gone wrong or overzealous weight loss. Yet these conditions warrant serious consideration because they are potentially life-threatening and can persist for years, ruining individuals’ long-term

… Continue reading →

The “Double Life” of Bulimia Nervosa: Patients’ Perspectives

Tetyana 57 Comments

My psychiatrist once compared my life to Dexter. He said I was living a double life. It was the summer before my final year in undergrad and I was working in a neuroscience lab. Yet things were so bad that at one point I was very close to quitting and doing Day Program treatment. (I didn’t, and things ended up getting better, thankfully.)

This post is going to be more personal than most. One, I can relate well to the topic. Two, I feel that I can give voice to it under my real name. (As opposed to just discuss it abstractly, or anonymously. There’s nothing wrong with being anonymous, but I feel that, for many reasons I am in a position where I don’t feel I have to be anonymous anymore.)

I think this is important because there are a lot of myths that surround eating disorders and … Continue reading →

Genetics: Friend or Foe in Ending Eating Disorder Stigma?

Tetyana 10 Comments

Refrigerator mothers or the idealization of thin models? Toxic families or toxins in our diets? Oh, if only determining the cause (because it has to be just one, right?) of eating disorders was that simple. All behaviour has a biological basis, a neurobiological correlate. The way our brains function—and the resulting behaviours — is due to complex interactions between our genome, epigenome, and the environment. Eating disorders do not have a single cause; we cannot put the blame solely on families, or thin models, vanity or genetics.

As a science grad student, I am interested in how non-scientists interpret scientific findings on mental disorders, particularly eating disorders. With respect to eating disorders, I am interested in how patients’ understanding of the science shapes the way they view themselves and their eating disorders, as well as how it shapes their treatment and recovery.

In a recent paper, Michele Easter wanted to find out … Continue reading →

How Do Anorexia Nervosa Patients Define Recovery and Engage in Treatment? The Need for Individualized Treatment

Gina

One difficulty in measuring rates of recovery for patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) is coming up with a cohesive definition of “recovery” that most of us can agree on. Similarly, it is hard to identify whether a particular treatment course is working when the patient and the clinician have different goals in mind. A 2010 study by Alison Darcy and colleagues (article is freely available here) – in an attempt to understand the patients’ goals – aims to explore how patients define recovery and engage in treatment. This study differs from a lot of the literature on treatments and recovery in that all the data comes from individuals with a lifetime history of AN. The population sampled includes 20 women with a mean age of just slightly over 29 (range from 19-52). This is a small sample size, which can make it difficult to generalize responses, and the information gathered … Continue reading →

Understanding Disordered Eating in Trans People

Tetyana 17 Comments

Gender nonconformity is the second most popular search term that leads people to Science of Eating Disorders. (After “science of eds” and beating “science of eating disorders”.) Not far behind are variants of “FtM/MtF/transsexual/transgender” combined with “eating disorder/anorexia/bulimia”. That’s telling. It means there is little information on this topic. And it is not just that there’s too little information available to the public – there are only a handful of published studies in the peer-reviewed literature.

One study (which I discussed in my previous post: Gender Nonconformity, Transsexuality and Eating Disorders) published by Vocks et al (2009), compared disordered eating patterns, body image disturbances and self-image scores among trans women and men (131 participants in both groups) and cis female and male controls as well as to females with eating disorders.

Overall, they found disordered eating patterns reported by trans women and trans men were in the middle … Continue reading →

What’s it Like to be a Man with an Eating Disorder?

Tetyana 4 Comments

What is it like for men to live with an eating disorder? What is it like for men to seek and receive treatment for an eating disorder? These are the questions that Kate Robinson and colleagues asked a group of eight men who were receiving treatment (inpatient, day patient or outpatient) at two ED treatment centers in the UK. Their goal was to find out if and how men’s experiences with an eating disorder differ from women with eating disorders.

Men account for roughly 10% of eating disorder patients (when considering anorexia and bulimia, not including binge eating disorder, which is not yet part of the DSM). I suspect this number is actually higher – as less men probably realize they have an ED, admit to having an ED or seek treatment, precisely due to the issues raised in this article (and others). Given that men form a sizeable minority … Continue reading →