Don't Be Talked Into An Eating Disorder If You Can Talk Yourself Out of Dieting
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A leading weight-control research
charity fears that exaggerated claims about the extent of eating
disorders are contributing to the general obesity and weight issues
crisis.
The Weight Foundation says that whilst
major eating disorders remain dangerous and distressing, over-zealous
diagnoses are fanning the flames of food distress.
Problem eaters and dieters are too
readily being pushed into medical categories, limiting abilities to
self-help and recover.
And the campaigning and support body
argues that much more research emphasis needs to be placed on
understanding dieting itself, which, along with a growing number of
experts, it contends is a major contributor to the widespread weight
and nutrition panic.
Typical predictions now commonly being
made are that up to 30% of all women will experience an eating
disorder some time within their lifetime, or that persistent dieting
and frustrating obesity are effectively eating disorders in their own
right.
This is what is called 'pathologizing'
- the defining of problems or conditions into disease. Once issues
become set in stone like this, the focus of remedy changes. It goes
from being voluntary habit change to demanding treatment by third
parties.
Some expert commentators not for one
minute believe that up to a third of women will suffer an eating
disorder. However what a small number of skeptical observers believe
matters not at all - if people are generally led to expect themselves
to be at risk, then risk automatically increases.
There is a mix of processes and
pressures that are combining to over-expand the territory of eating
disorders.
Until recently, definitions of eating
disorders have generally comprised Anorexia and Bulimia. The research
community is now settling on 'Binge Eating Disorder' to capture the
notion of repeated and out of control overeating. BED as a concept is
ring-fenced with a considerable array of necessary anxieties and
obsessions to differentiate it from lesser overeating.
Despite the cautious progress of
researchers in testing the boundaries of eating disorders, a
less-sophisticated eating disorders bandwagon is creating a
disruptive and destructive momentum.
One of the pitfalls of mainstream
eating disorder research remains the somewhat catchall term “Eating
Disorder Not Otherwise Specified” (EDNOS), which less careful
commentators are misusing as an entry point into the eating disorder
spectrum.
Individual issues of self-image
anxieties, overeating, continual dieting and obesity concerns are
being conflated into broader quasi-medical conditions. Even some of
the main advocacy and support groups are being quite loose in their
'entry level' definitions.
This is not to downplay for one minute
the dangers and distress caused by full-blown eating disorders,
including serious binge eating. However people can exercise a far
greater control over what is personal and cultural than they can over
what is becoming to be seen as endemic and medical.
Mainstream estimates of in the order of
c.1.2 million cases of eating disorders in the UK and c.8 million in
the US are suddenly being revised upwards, often drastically, by the
media and by the vast number of mainly web-based weight-loss pundits.
A greater level of care needs to be
generally exercised between what is capable of being improved by
personal lifestyle choices and what needs specialist intervention.
The Weight Foundation is researching
the causes and culture of long-term dieting. It believes that
dieting, for many people, has become a way of life largely divorced
from any useful connection with weight-loss and weight-control.
Hardcore dieters need a logical methodology through which to unpack
and unpick the emotional, cultural and commercial influences to
persistent and futile dieting.
However, the more the eating disorder
enthusiasts push too many people down the road of disease labels, the
lower the chances for many of establishing a natural and relaxed
relationship with food.
About the Author
Malcolm Evans is an addictions specialist who is founder and secretary of The Weight Foundation, which develops and publishes free online dieting self-help resources.
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