Because eating disorders are regularly in the news, and because I don't have time to blog on each individual item, I've decided to do a weekly wrap-up. And because I have a penchant for bad puns, this will be the Saturday Smorgasbord.*

Busy women are suffering from 'stressorexia'. I hate HATE that "-orexia" is added to the names of phenomena that may not have anything to do with the actual illness anorexia nervosa. This article basically says that women are stressed out, juggling work and home and everything that goes with it, and they don't find time to eat. So they lose weight. I don't want to diminish the issues faced by working women (mothers in particular), but you don't need to turn it into a psychological disorder. There's a big difference between losing weight because of stress and not caring for yourself properly and an actual eating disorder. These kind of distinctions really do matter.

Teen eating disorders more common than was thought. Ya think? Reports say that diagnoses of anorexia have remained constant since the 1950s. Bulimia has been increasing. Yet most teens have some form of EDNOS or disordered eating. In a sense, with our bizarre diet-obsessed culture, it's kind of hard not to. My parents did a good job trying to instill in me a sense of self-worth and joy of eating and respect for myself and my body. But culture is a powerful animal. One of the best quotes about eating disorders that I've found in a basic news article is this: "Anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and even compulsive overeating are all mental illnesses that generally have roots in anxiety and depression, said Susan Richter."

New Miss America to promote eating disorders awareness. That the winner of a beauty paegant should be promoting eating disorder awareness strikes me as more than a little oxymoronic. Yet I wish her all the best and hope that she promotes accurate and up-to-date information.

Perceived Ideal Weight As a Determinant of Health. I can't say it better than Harriet: "It's not how fat you are -- it's how thin you think you should be." No matter what a person's BMI was, a large determinant of their overall health was the discrepancy between what they actually weighed and what they thought they should weigh. Dieting is stressful on body and mind, and so is self-hatred. Jessica Hagy at Indexed summarizes the phenomenon in graphic form thusly:

I hope you enjoyed your first of many smorgasbords. I welcome news stories from all readers- just send them along to the email address that's in my profile.