Tuesday, May 26, 2009
California Conference: Mending the Mind, Minding the Body: A one day conference exploring innovative approaches to treatment
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Overweight Teens and Suicide Correlation
Worries About Weight Are Tied to Teen Suicide Tries
Even those who only think they're fat face higher risk, study findshttp://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_84389.html
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Experiential Therapies at Remuda Ranch
As you know, anxiety and eating disorders are found in every segment of the population: young, old; men, women; boys, girls. And though people may share a similar disorder, they are still individuals, which means they integrate information and embrace change differently. That’s exactly why the experiential therapies at Remuda Ranch are such an important component of our intensive treatment program.
In addition to individual and group therapy, our patients engage in several innovative therapies designed to help them learn, grow, and change. Patients are involved in Equine, Canine, Art, Challenge Course, and Recreational Activities. While our female patients address body image issues through movement therapy, males discover how to understand and respect their bodies through strength training.
If you know someone who could benefit from inpatient treatment at either our
Why Remuda?
Because it works.
- Click here to read our latest news release.
- Register for our upcoming 2009 conference, Hungry for Hope: Restoring Identity
- Search Remuda Careers. Your Passion. God's Work.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The Astonishing Case of the Shrinking Muslim Woman
May 14, 2009
Posted by Alicia in Culture/Society, News.
Source: http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2009/05/14/the-astonishing-case-of-the-shrinking-muslim-woman/
Posted by Alicia in Culture/Society, News.
It’s become common belief that Muslim women, particularly those wear the hijab, are liberated from the media-driven standards of beauty that values the thin and the willowy. But it’s a belief that couches on the idea that head-coverings and modest clothes provide little incentive for showing off a great looking body in public. In other words, Muslim women are supposed to live blissfully unaffected by media and social pressures that both distorts our body image and damages our self-esteem. So when levels of anorexia amongst teenage girls in the U.A.E. were reported to nearly double those in the U.K., the phenomenon was described to be “astonishing”.
The news report I refer to is something Fatemeh had posted up on the Friday Links last week. It revealed that the occurrence of anorexia nervosa amongst young women aged 13 to 19 years old in the Emirates were found to be around 1.8 percent, compared to the 1.0 percent in Britain. Although the article does not explain what drives Emirati teenagers into self-starvation, it does attempt to highlight a little known fact: that women and girls outside the West also suffer from eating disorders, and that the global nature of the disorder is partially attributed to Western influences. According to one psychiatrist, these influences infiltrate in foreign-made films and other forms of media:
“We have so much influence from other countries, we have the same movies and [the same] messages in the media like in the UK and USA, however there is not any form of understanding about the meaning of the illnesses which are said to be linked to these.”
But it’s not as clear-cut as that. A thought-provoking study led by Tracy Mann, a professor of health psychology at the University of California of Los Angeles, showed that women do not have to be bombarded by imported media to aspire to thinness. In her experiment, she compared the attitudes to beauty and body image of female Iranian university students in Tehran with those studying at the UCLA campus and found that, startlingly, the female students in Iran were just as obsessed with their weight as their American counterparts. And not only that, the number of students in Tehran who desired an empty stomach, went for long periods without food, and vomited to control their weight were significantly higher than those in the U.S.
Problematising the issue of self-induced starvation further is the news media’s portrayal of women on hunger strike as heroines. Although hunger strikes are not anything like anorexia, young and beautiful women like Roxana Saberi have resisted food in what is perceived by many to be a heroic act of protest. Inadvertently, she, like other women in the media and in the fashion industry who may or may not have eating disorders become role models to young women who follow their path to meaningful self-deprivation.
Though the causes for anorexia are notoriously complicated, the one major causal factor (other than physical and psychological trauma) appears to be the dangerous effects of unrealistic media imagery. Without a counterculture that celebrates alternatives to thin Western media ideals, women are made to believe that it’s not okay to be a size 12 or have flabby arms if they want to be successful in romance and life. Ironically, the exemplary models of counterculture that offer hope to women of all body shapes and sizes emerge from the West as well. By this I mean stuff like the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty, among other things. (Although I find Dove’s problematic use of naked women and women in their underwear to uplift the diversity of female bodies does a sad disservice to the dismantling of the male gaze, but you know that they’ve at least got their heart in the right place).
But back to the U.A.E. Psychiatrists at Al Ain University have proposed for a campaign to raise public awareness about how harmful both extreme dieting and binge eating can be. Just as important is pointing out to the public that eating disorders are not as rare as it looks, as many who suffer do not recognise that they had a problem to begin to with. Personally, I think it would be interesting to see if campaigning efforts aim to tackle the media into getting these disorders on their agenda and deal with them in a sensitive and effective way.
Source: http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2009/05/14/the-astonishing-case-of-the-shrinking-muslim-woman/
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Follow Eating Disorder Hope on Twitter!
Hope you will stay in touch with us on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/edhope
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Significantly Cut Your Operating Expenses, Outsource with Treatment Consultants
During these tough economic times, it is a strategic, cost effective move to outsource marketing, intake, staffing or program development. Eliminating the costs associated with full time employees can make a significant impact on the bottom line. However, it's critical to hire a company that has an excellent track record, knows the industry and can maximize your company's potential and minimize your costs.
Treatment Consultants is pleased to announce they have joined forces with Gregory Consulting to provide comprehensive outsourcing services to treatment facilities around the country. Katie Gregory, an expert in the field of treatment center business development, brings years of experience to the Treatment Consultants team.
Outsourcing Services:
* Business Development and Marketing: Including strategic planning, developing websites and collateral materials, national and local marketing, managing marketing departments and training.
* Full Service Call Center: Don't miss a call! Outsource your entire intake department or have our highly trained intake staff take afterhours/weekend calls. We understand the importance of conversion and also provide comprehensive intake staff trainings.
* Increase Length of Stay/ Decrease Early Discharges: Treatment Consultants provides evaluation and specific training methods to help your staff increase length of stay and curtail early discharges.
* Recruiting Services: We'll find the best in the business to fill openings at your facility at a very reasonable cost. We specialize in full time, part time or interim clinical, marketing or management positions.
* Start Up Treatment Programs: From soup to nuts, we have extensive experience in opening successful new facilities.
Please call and set up a free initial consultation at the upcoming NAATP conference. Lynn Sucher: 480-235-6444/800-390-8531
Treatment Consultants is pleased to announce they have joined forces with Gregory Consulting to provide comprehensive outsourcing services to treatment facilities around the country. Katie Gregory, an expert in the field of treatment center business development, brings years of experience to the Treatment Consultants team.
Outsourcing Services:
* Business Development and Marketing: Including strategic planning, developing websites and collateral materials, national and local marketing, managing marketing departments and training.
* Full Service Call Center: Don't miss a call! Outsource your entire intake department or have our highly trained intake staff take afterhours/weekend calls. We understand the importance of conversion and also provide comprehensive intake staff trainings.
* Increase Length of Stay/ Decrease Early Discharges: Treatment Consultants provides evaluation and specific training methods to help your staff increase length of stay and curtail early discharges.
* Recruiting Services: We'll find the best in the business to fill openings at your facility at a very reasonable cost. We specialize in full time, part time or interim clinical, marketing or management positions.
* Start Up Treatment Programs: From soup to nuts, we have extensive experience in opening successful new facilities.
Please call and set up a free initial consultation at the upcoming NAATP conference. Lynn Sucher: 480-235-6444/800-390-8531
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Male with anorexia says men need more help
Anorexic says men need more help
A teenage man from Cornwall treated for an eating disorder has spoken out to tell other sufferers that there is "life beyond anorexia".
Nineteen-year-old Chris Hardy said controlling what he ate had given him a sense of achievement.
But when he realised he needed help, he sought treatment for seven months at the specialist Haldon Unit in Exeter.
He said: "I hope men don't think they will show themselves up because they want help for this problem."
Chris Hardy said that he was not sure when his disorder started, but he thought several things led to it.
“ Perhaps it's a way of trying to understand and control the world that's going on around them ”
Vanessa Ford, Haldon Unit
Vanessa Ford, Haldon Unit
He said: "A lot of stuff happened at 11 or 12 that was quite traumatic. My parents divorced, I moved school, moved house. And then you also start to become more aware of body image at that age anyway."
When he moved to Cardiff to study medicine at university, his food intake dropped dramatically.
He said: "I would count out the exact number of pieces of cereal to eat to have each morning, have a cracker lunchtime, and then maybe a few bits of pasta in the evening.
"It was nothing really, but even that seemed too much and I would work on reducing it the next day. That was how I got a sense of achievement."
At one time his Body Mass index (BMI), which the Department of Health defines as the most common method of evaluating to see if people are under or overweight, was 15.
The range described as normal is 18.5 and 24.99.
When he could no longer concentrate in lectures, he got help. Staff at the unit supported him with therapy while getting him to eat properly again.
'Traumatic things'
According to national support charity B-eat, more than 11,000 male patients are receiving treatment nationally. But it is thought this represents only a small proportion of those who have the condition and are keeping it hidden.
Haldon Unit service manager Vanessa Ford said the unit had seen a rise in the number of male patients, and that the reasons for men suffering from eating disorders were the same as those for women.
She said: "Perhaps various traumatic things have happened in their lives, and perhaps it's a way of trying to understand and control the world that's going on around them."
Chris Hardy said he felt that control was taken away from him when he first started treatment.
But he added: "I had to have faith that the care team knew what they were doing."
Now leaving the unit, Chris Hardy said he was planning to return to university and that he wanted others in his position to seek help.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/8045237.stm
Published: 2009/05/12 07:31:51 GMT
© BBC MMIX
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