‘But I ask myself if an eating disorder unit is the best place for an impressionable young girl to be,’ says Deanne Jade. ‘As any inpatient will tell you, a specialist unit is the best place to learn how to be really, really good at anorexia.’ They also breed their own subculture.
– Still at war with our bodies

Oh, what a statement! This article is a couple of years old, but I still think it’s bold to suggest that the “highest level of care” for eating disorders actually makes …

I am a little rigid about my daily routine. I like waking up at the same time every day, doing the same workout every day, working the same hours, eating the same foods, etc. I’m not totally inflexible (I can skip the workout, sleep in if I’m tired, take a half-day from work, spontaneously go out to eat, etc.), but when given the choice will follow my routine.
My routine basically went out the window when I moved to a new city this summer. I couldn’t walk the …

“I wish that all these guys were going to stay clean, I really do. I’ve just seen it so many times that I can tell when someone’s really willing to do whatever it takes and when someone’s willing to do what they think it should take. And it’s just not going to work like that, unfortunately.”
–Shelly, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew 2

I was watching Celebrity Rehab 2 online tonight (since I’m a little behind), and these words from Shelley really caught my attention. There are so many …

Laura Collins raised a GREAT question today — Does (mom’s) size matter? While I have a lot to say about the matter, two main points come to mind:
1. Mothers with eating disorders
I think that your mother’s weight and behaviors surrounding food are much more relevant in recovery than in the downward eating disorder spiral. Parents model for their kids — I’d argue that this is even true for adult kids (adult kids, ha — you know what I mean). While I think that the eating habits of …

I was doing some Christmas shopping online at Amazon this morning (free shipping AND free gift wrapping? I’m sold.) and I ran across this book: “Puppy Chow is Better Than Prozac”
I’ve read plenty of books on the healing power of pets (and I completely believe in pet therapy) but never a book on pets and Bipolar disorder. Now I haven’t purchased this yet (I assure you that it IS in my shopping cart, though), so I can’t review the book… but it did get me thinking about pets …

This is, by far, the most interesting article that I’ve read in a long time: Caring for the Chronically Remitting Anorexia Nervosa Patient
According to Dr. Michael Strober, most people who develop anorexia nervosa will not remain in an acute malnourished state throughout their entire lives, although a significant minority of people have varying levels of illness over decades.

I think this highlights an important point — that you can’t be severely malnourished for years. There have to be points of better physical health in there… why? Because something is …

From a study on perfection and anorexia:
Levels of perfectionism stayed the same while eating disorder symptoms and psychiatric symptoms decreased during recovery. Levels of perfectionism were inversely related to duration of remission so that individuals that had short illness duration had lower levels of perfectionism at both follow-ups. Patients with initial high levels of perfectionism may be at risk for a long illness duration which we recommend clinicians to acknowledge.
I am personally very interested in “chronic anorexia” — which is a controversial topic, since some believe that all eating disorders …

My new FAVORITE article.
Diagnostic Crossover in Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa:
Implications for DSM-V
(Am J Psychiatry 2008; 165:245–250)
I actually think this whole study was amazing and definitely recommend reading it if you can (and I’m always a skeptic, so this is rare that I’d say this).  That said, I don’t think that the study does much for defining, validating, or invalidating the ED-NOS diagnosis.
 I think that this is brilliant, and should be used for actual diagnosis… not just as a measure in this study:
The Eating Disorders Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation was …