I really wish people would stop referring to compulsive overeating as an addiction. I feel that the definition of addiction has been watered down so much that it has lost all meaning.

Overeating is a compulsion. It may have traits in common with adictions but I'm not sold on the idea that it is a a true addiction. Call me paranoid, but I think this is just a backdoor way to classify certain foods as drugs and bolster the cause to ban them and to pathologize and monitor people who use these "drugs."

I've been to a health class where a drug was defined as "anything that changed the body's chemistry." Well, ANYTHING could be classified as a drug under that definition! Water could be defined as a drug because less ADH is produced. Vegetables could be classified as drugs because their nutrients stimulate and enhance various processes in the body.

Listening to music, going on a rollercoaster (all that adrenalin), all could be drugs. Again, addiction is about to lose all meaning because of the way the word is thrown around.

I like the article about attitudes and healthy lifestyles. A lot of the so-called lifestyle diseases, such as high blood pressure, are actually stress responses. The ironic thing is that we stigmatize people with chronic illnesses, especially, again, the "lifestyle" illnesse such as diabetes.

ED cutoffs DO miss some of the sickest patients. One of my pet peeves is when people see anorexic patients and feel sorry for them. Then they proceed to engage in eating disordered behaviors such as counting calories, "making up" for the calories they consumed by overexercising, etc. The point of images like that is to let people know how serious an illness anorexia is, the drawback is that a lot of people who are sick or who are at risk, who engage in unhealthy behaviors, don't think they're in danger when they are.