the position paper by the ADA is somewhat old-school and offensive. with language like "readiness to change" and "refusal to maintain," the paper reads like a critical analysis of eating disorder sufferers. maybe i've just been fighting ed too long, but i know that we don't choose this disease and we always want to feel better, but there is a lot up against us sometimes.

The second link confused me for a minute - for some reason I thought it might suggest that people with anorexia feel worse at healthy weights, whereas most research suggests that body dysmorphia is worse at lower weights. Then I read the abstract and realised that the subject is very different - it showed that already overweight girls who were dissatisfied their bodies gained even more weight. So really it's a very important piece of research for all the schools in the USA and UK which think that fat-shaming bigger children (or their parents) will make them lose weight. I always suspected that was a bit of a dodgy conclusion. After all, eating disorders are often accompanied by a lot of shame, and telling someone with anorexia to think of the starving children in Africa just generally makes them hate themselves more and eat less, so it seems likely that there would be a parallel in people with BED.

I laughed a bit at the Swedish study - higher maternal education linked to children with EDs, eh? I suppose that could be helpful in identifying children at risk, but it would be MORE helpful to work out why the correlation exists and what to do about it. I highly doubt not going to university would lower a person's future children's risk of developing an ED, could it possibly be more to do with something like personality traits which make it more likely for a woman to attain higher levels of education being linked to ED predisposition?

Katie- the first thing I thought of when I read the article linking higher maternal education to eds was this: many women who achieve a high education have that perfectionistic, driven personality. You probably thought of this too. This personality type can lead to wonderful things, like academic success and professional accomplishments, and it can also lead to struggles such as anorexia. Pretty much every "good" personality trait can be dangerous when taken to an extreme- perfectionism is one of those. So I think, in this study, they found a link between families with genetic predispositions towards perfectionism and families with high maternal educations. It's downright silly for them to assume that a degree stamped on a piece of paper could have any bearing on ed development. Makes so much more sense to look at the personality traits that contribute to both things- high education and success, and eds.

Anon,

You're right--I agree with you. Still, the position paper has been making the rounds on Twitter, etc, and I felt it was an important enough development to add it to the smorgasbord. As well, I think dieticians can be very important to recovery.

But thank you for pointing that out! Much appreciated!

hm,

Yes, I think that's the exact link between maternal education and AN. It's less of an actual risk factor and more of a marker of a personality style that puts people at risk.

Thank you Carrie for finding and sharing all of this research! I am happy to see this research(Women with bulimia show difficulties with impulse control and emotion processing in fMRI scans when faced with food) being done on BN and the brain.

We have suspected some of this for a long time and I am happy to see this initial result: "This study substantiates a key role of lateral prefrontal dysfunction in BN, a brain region involved in impulse control. Furthermore, the anterior cingulate cortex, which plays a key role in emotion processing, is dysfunctional."

This looks promising and I hope that further research will be done to see how to prevent future occurrences of BN.

Becky Henry
Hope Network

"As well, I think dieticians can be very important to recovery."

So glad to hear you say this, Carrie. I think dieticians are essential members of the ED recovery team and yet I have read too often recently that some families and even patients view them as unecessary and have seen blanket statements advising against the consulting with one.

~Anon2~

as always, thank you so much for posting such informative and interesting articles! just wanted to let you know I appreciate the posting each week.

http://thenudgepatrol.blogspot.com/