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I’ve got lots of blog post ideas and not enough time to write them. Here’s a few quick hits of related topics in the news.

A new study reveals the obvious: one’s social environment affects eating disorder development. A study of high school students showed a small, but significant clustering effect in eating disorder behaviors and symptoms. Researchers found that a pair of students from the same county was 4 percent to 10 percent more likely to share an eating-disordered behavior when compared to pairs in which each person came from a different county. While the study wasn’t designed to look at why these behaviors might be clustering in certain areas, the researchers suggest that peer pressure, information sharing or students modeling their behavior on one another are possible mechanisms.

“These findings confirm the strong social influences on female adolescents in the U.S. to be thin, sometimes using unhealthy behaviors to achieve this goal,” the researchers write in the current issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders. (h/t Mariellen)

An editorial in the Edmonton Sun nostalgically recalls the supermodels of the 1990s - Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell - compared to the skin-and-bones heroin chic cultural aesthetic of today. I think there is a tendency to overly romanticize these models as the pinnacle of a healthy body image when people in the 1990s were criticizing much the same things of models then, but there’s no denying that standards have changed to become higher, harsher. Writer Patrycja Romanowska opines:

There was one thing that the 1990s supermodels didn’t inspire us to do - starve.

We were not super skinny, nor were we fat. We grew breasts and hips, thinking that this was what teenage girls were supposed to do and didn’t obsess about weight.

How did bones and organs sticking out of skin ever become hot? Whatever happened to filling out a bra? To Marilyn Monroe? To Venus de Milo? …Let the Cindys and the Marilyns, the Venuses and Claudias come back and redefine feminity.

And let the rest of us eat our cake in peace.

Sage advice, indeed.

My husband let me know about British Ex-Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott’s confession of suffering from bulimia, but Kate beat me to the punch with this excellent summation over at Broadsheet of the social implications of Prescott’s revelation. Eating disorders are still perceived to be an intrinsically female phenomenon, and there still exists stereotypes of who does and who doesn’t develop an eating disorder. Kate rightly busts these stereotypes and calls for a questioning of these assumptions. Alas, the Broadsheet commenters reflect the confusion and misunderstanding that still exists about eating disorders today.

Lots of news from the British presses today: The Telegraph reports that some fashion magazines are digitally manipulating images of emaciated models to be more full-figured, not less. Nicky Eaton, the head of press and PR at Condé Nast, which publishes Vogue, GQ, and Glamour, confirmed that images of models were enhanced to make them appear fuller-figured. This, of course, represents a dramatic departure from those magazines who photoshop even the thinnest of models into more of an airbrushed perfection. The move comes as fashion magazines try to deflect or preemptively avoid criticisms of contributing to eating disorders amongst young girls and women.

While this certainly represents a turning of the tide for the better, I can’t help but think that if fashion magazines now want to feature women representing the vision of good health, why not use such women in the first place and not super-skinny models who require airbrushing?

And lastly, some sad news to share. Internationally-acclaimed British professor Rosemary Pope has died from complications of anorexia. Pope, a highly educated, 49-year-old health educator who suffered from anorexia since childhood, reportedly subsisted on Weight Watchers sweets and coffee. She was described by colleagues as a “shining light.”

Comments or questions on any of the above? Discuss your thoughts below.