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I tore out this snippet I found in one of those “health” magazines at my doctor’s office. You know the kind… the ones that purport to be about health and yet the first half of the magazine is devoted to “losing weight” and “looking better.” Yeah, well, it was either that or read Nicole Ritchie’s gushing about her new baby.

Gym-goers who look out of shape aren’t the best role models, but they might actually inspire you more than people with buff bodies. University of California, San Diego, researchers found that women who exercised next to plump peers worked out two minutes longer than they did when working out next to fitness freaks. Lead researcher James A. Kulik, PhD, thinks the women wanted to show off next to (or avoid becoming like) someone less fit, but they felt demoralized when next to a woman who was more toned.

What strikes me most about this snippet is that because the “non-plump” gym-goers are compelled to exercise more, the tone of the brief seems to condone and even promote the behavior, regardless of the destructive motivations driving it (it was included on a page with other weight-loss advice and tips). Both hypotheses — the woman who wants to “show off” in front of a fatter woman or the woman who uses her “plump peer” as the yardstick by which she measures her own self-worth — indicates a degree of self-insecurity and self-anxiety, feelings that an extra two minutes on the stairclimber won’t ever whittle away.

I looked up the study and found it ironically enough to be published in the July, 2007 edition of the International Journal of Eating Disorders - abstract here. Some additional context: The study included female undergraduate students (who may be more susceptible to this kind of behavior) and sought to measure the the effects of peer comparisons in a naturalistic setting or on objective behavior one body-image perceptions. The results?

Exposure to a fit peer had undermining effects on women’s body satisfaction and exercise duration, whereas an unfit peer produced no compensating greater body satisfaction but did elicit longer exercise duration relative to controls.

The thrust of the study measured body dissatisfaction, and so it’s inclusion in an eating disorders journal isn’t strange. What is curious is the “health” magazine’s positive slant on it as evidenced by its very title, “Fitness Freaks bad for your figure.” Maybe a more appropriate title would have instead been “Low self-esteem bad for your mind.” Instead of recognizing the negativity revealed in the study published in an eating disorders journal, the magazine chose to appropriate aspects of it to further promote “health” and weight-loss. Once again, what would be considered disordered and even mentally ill for thin people is liberally disseminated as healthy advice for fat people. Who needs pro-ana sites when mainstream media normalizes disordered eating and behaviors?

My gym membership now is through our company’s on-site gym and I’m usually the only one working out in the late evening hours. My last gym membership where I worked out with other people was during the heydays of my eating disorder, when I habitually compared myself against every other woman anyway, so, my perspective may be a bit skewed. I do acutely remember one particular instance, though, from a few years ago, partly because I journaled about it. I usually ended my workouts with my own hillbilly version of yoga in a darkened, unused aerobics room. I was stretching on the bar when another, thinner girl about my age came in and started stretching also. I don’t think she was paying me the slightest bit of attention, but I soon began mimicking her movements and deliberately stretching farther than she and longer in a physical and mental game of endurance. She soon left and I “won.”

Have your workouts ever been subject to influence by the woman working out next to you? Do you feel like others pay any attention to what it is you’re doing at the gym?

This originally arose as a comment to the discussion over at Shapely Prose on the recent study which claims you cannot be fat and fit. There’s another dedicated discussion on the subject at Feed Me!. I decided to repost my comments here, too.

The study in question, of course, is this one referenced in this AP story or read the official study here. The study followed some 39,000 women with an average age of 54 over a period of 11 years, tracking their weight, physical activity, and incidence of heart disease. The study concluded that overweight active women had a 54 percent higher risk and obese women an 87 percent higher risk for developing heart disease. By contrast, overweight inactive women had a 88 percent higher risk and obese inactive women a 21/2 times greater risk for developing heart disease.

In other words, according to these researchers, weight trumps physical activity in the development of heart disease.

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The belief that upward social mobility in the United States can be achieved with mere hard work and determination has existed almost as long as the country itself. America’s Protestant worth ethic has been encapsulated by people like Horatio Alger, who wrote a series of stories involving poor young men who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to achieve great success.

Weight-based discrimination is rampant today because of our culturally ingrained stereotypes of fatness and fat people. Fat people, it is assumed, are fat due to “lifestyle choices,” that being a willful overeating of “bad” foods and sedentary lifestyle. So-called obesity-related diseases are viewed to be a drain on our national economy, as they decrease work productivity and increase health care costs. And because of the conflation of fat with overconsumption, those rapacious fat people are also thought to represent a threat to the environment and the security of the nation state itself.

The world collectively sighs as it wonders why fat people won’t just practice dietary restraint, eat healthier foods, exercise and pay scads of money for diet programs, even if such programs have been shown to be largely ineffective. Why, oh why can’t and won’t fat people pull themselves up by their bootstraps to become thin, socially acceptable, and responsible citizens?

Maybe it’s because fatness isn’t always caused by inactivity and a scarfing down of Twinkies. As anyone who has struggled with weight will attest, weight loss and gain aren’t always simple matters of “choice.” Here are some physiological reasons why some people are fat:

Read the rest of this entry »

Sixty-five percent of American women between the ages of 25 and 45 report having disordered eating behaviors, according to the results of a new survey by SELF Magazine in partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An additional 10 percent of women report symptoms consistent with eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder, meaning that a total of 75 percent of all American women endorse some unhealthy thoughts, feelings or behaviors related to food or their bodies.

The online survey garnered responses from 4,023 women who answered detailed questions about their eating habits. Results and analysis appear in the magazine’s May 2008 issue on newsstands through May 19. Click here to read the article online.

While I don’t doubt the high levels of unhealthy relationships with food amongst a national cross-section of women, I do have to point out that Self isn’t exactly a paragon of body size acceptance. Every edition touts some kind of diet and weight loss plan, along with some half-naked airbrushed woman on its glossy cover.

Consider a sampling of recent headlines: “New fixes for stubborn fat!,” “A Diet to Shed Pounds Fast!,” “The 10-Calorie Secret,” “Drop Weight, Look Great and Never Go to the Gym,” “Shortcut to your Best Body,” “A Super Simple Slim-Down!,” “The One-Month Total Body Makeover,” “Peel off the Pounds!,” “Lose Weight Every Day!,” “The Beauty Diet,” and so on.

The magazine even boasts an online section dedicated solely to dieting, with “healthy eating” thrown in almost as an afterthought. Members here can join the Self Diet Club complete with “powerful tools can track your progress, analyze your diet and even tell you exactly what to eat (and what to skip) to slim down.” Because eating according to software dictates is much better than intuitive eating, right? Readers can also read about how to jump start their diet to drop a size in 30 days, take the Self challenge to achieve a “dream body,” learn fitness moves designed to burn more calories, and get such helpful reminders like how calorie-laden beverages can make you fat.

In the article “Scale Stuck?” Self urges women to consider 10 reasons why they’re not losing weight and genetics isn’t one of them. Such sage recommendations include recommendations to grocery shop online, count calories and don’t celebrate workouts with M & Ms. Other stellar recommendations are to deliver messages in person instead of email so you can lose nearly a pound a month!, as well as the same kinds of advice distributed on pro-ana boards, like encouraging women to wear tight jeans on weekends so you don’t overeat and to give away clothes the moment you drop a size to “ensure you won’t drift into them again.”

While Self does include constructive articles on how to beat stress, healthy recipes and basic nutrition, health issues like breast cancer, and green fashion and living trends, its overall emphasis is that women need to change. Specifically, that women need become thinner and more beautiful and ergo better people. I have to wonder if there exists an audience of women who don’t accept themselves as they are and Self simply fills that need, or does magazines like Self help to create and perpetuate such audiences?

With its predominant emphasis on dieting, weight loss and unrealistic beauty standards, it comes as no wonder so many of Self’s readers have unhealthy relationships with food, weight and body image. Perhaps the magazine ought to see its study more as an indictment of itself and less as a reflection of a national trend.

EDIT: Claire of 5 Resolutions advised me the survey was a national survey, and not solely of Self readers. My comments about the magazine still stand.

A roundup of related topics in the news…

Fat activist Jeanne Toombs has passed away due to complications of pneumonia. Am active board member of NAAFA, Toombs also spearheaded efforts to assist in the passing of the bill that would add height and weight to the protected classes in Massachusetts. Expressions of sympathy may be sent to her sister Nancy at ntb180 (at) comcast.net.

Via Shapely Prose: The magazine that’s working on reproducing Kate Harding’s BMI project is still actively looking for more women of color and women in their 40s and 50s to submit photos. If you fall into one or both of those categories, and either the overweight or obese BMI category, and are in good health (by your own definition), they would love to hear from you. Submission info is here.

Daniel Engbar, an associate editor at Slate magazine, wants people to shut up about the cost of obesity. Check out his editorial on the subject in the Dallas News. Calling current obesity scapegoating efforts “misleading” and “misguided,” Engbar argues it is the stigma of being fat - and not being fat in itself - that actually contributes to illnesses attributed to obesity and poor health. He rightfully calls for presidential candidates to pledge support for a federal ban on weight-based discrimination.

Speaking of weight-based discrimination… Anna Kirklund’s new book Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood has been released. Kirklund, an assistant professor of Women’s Studies and Political Science at the University of Michigan, places the focus of fat rights squarely where it ought to be: civil rights. I’m definitely adding this one to my already growing summer reading list.

I’m featured in the newly released issue 6 of Pulse Zine, along with articles on coping with sizeism and sexism, the gender of group fitness, sexual abuse, a DIY on creating a zine and many more feminist-inspired topics. I received a copy of the previous edition before I agreed to the interview and I found it chockfull of feminist artwork, articles, affirmations and body-positive articles. For ordering information, see here.

Author Leslie Goldman of the blog The Weighting Game appeared on The Today Show last week for a segment on spring break and eating disorders. The story centers on Ashley Fillips, who fought and beat an eating disorder and is now an eating disorders activist. The segment focuses on spring break and eating disorders, but it’s important to note, by Ashely’s own admission, she struggled with disordered thinking and eating at a very young age. I don’t think the segment entirely simplifies eating disorders to spring break syndrome, but it does skate over other factors inherent to eating disorder development. Leslie shared some admissions from women she received during research for her book, Locker Room Diaries, including a woman who admitted that she and her friends were all doing cocaine so that they could fit into their bikinis for spring break. Click here for a video clip of the segment.

Diabulimia makes the news again, this time with an excellent feature in the Boston Globe. The term refers to people with Type 1 diabetes who skip or skimp on insulin doses in a dangerous attempt to lose weight. It’s been estimated that up to one-third of women with the disease engage in these behaviors. The article shares results from a recent Joslin Diabetes Center study of 234 women with type 1 diabetes. They found 10 deaths among women who had restricted insulin, compared to 16 among the larger group who had not. Those who restricted their insulin died on average 13 years younger - at 45, compared to 58.

Many patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy also experience a number of symptoms of eating disorders, according to findings from a Dutch study reported in the journal Sleep. Aside from the main features of excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy, one of the more prominent symptoms of narcolepsy is an increase in body weight, along with some reports of symptoms of eating disorders in these patients. For more information on the study and its results, read here.

Comments? Critiques? Post your comments below.

I’ve got lots of blog topics collecting dust in my brain, but no time to write them just now. Instead, here are a few weight-related topics in the news to chew on.

Wow. A major newspaper - The Sacramento Bee - has acknowledged body weight may be more a case of genes and metabolism than the “just eat less and exercise more” mantra - “Is it your fate to be fat?” They even consult and cite Gina Kolata. But what article wouldn’t be replete without the usual caveats on how folks can circumvent their genetic destinies to lose weight anyway. And you have to love the pro-ana advice given to fat people at the article’s conclusion by a so-called “expert on diet and fitness.”

Trailing on the heels of the Washington Post article on weight-based discrimination in health care comes an article by The News-Leader on the same topic. The same assumptions are there - that fat people are fat because of their diet and lifestyle habits - but the article does give tips for health-care providers on how they can be more sensitive to issues of weight.

Kate Spicer, one of the BBC journalists who embarked on an extreme diet for the documentary “Super Skinny Me” has been making the media rounds. She appeared yesterday on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, along with Dr. James Lock, head of the Eating Center program at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. She also has an editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune documenting her experiences. Concludes Spicer:

Some people are naturally skinny. Many others admit that they have to work hard at it. After my brief but torturous glimpse into their world, I pity them. Those women who choose to make skinniness their main asset are really only living half a life.

And finally, the TVO network will premiere the Emmy-nominated documentary Thin at 9 p.m. EST March 2, followed by an online panel discussion with experts on eating disorders at its website, www.tvoparents.com, who will take questions and comments from the online public starting at 10:45 p.m. For those of you who haven’t heard of Lauren Greenfield’s documentary, the HBO film chronicles the experiences of four young women with eating disorders who are patients at the Renfrew Center, a residential facility for the treatment of eating disorders. More information on Thin here. TVO is a Canadian station, so I’m unsure if folks in the U.S. or elsewhere have access, but the panel discussion is accessible for everyone. See TVO’s press release for more information on the premiere and for a list of panel experts.

Update: Junk Food Science is reporting that Polly Ann Williams, one of the women featured in the documentary, has died. Read Greenfield’s obituary to her here.

New research out of the University College London suggests genetics and heritability may account for 77 percent of obesity, while environmental factors make up less than 25 percent. The study appears this month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Researchers there followed 5,092 pairs of twins aged eight to 11 years, born between 1994 and 1996, leading the researchers to conclude:

“Although contemporary environments have made today’s children fatter than were children 20 years ago, the primary explanation for variations within the population, then and now, is genetic difference between individual children.“

It’s important to note here that such “contemporary environments” include a massive rise of the dieting culture, fueled by a growing anti-obesity hysteria. We also have more and more of what Michael Pollan calls “edible food-like substances,” including highly-processed, low-cal, low-fat, low-carb, fat-free and sugar-free diet foods promoted as “healthy,” while a natural and simple potato is demonized.

“These results do not mean that a child with a high complement of ’susceptibility genes’ will inevitably become overweight, but that their genetic endowment gives them a stronger predisposition. In today’s environment - which provides unprecedented opportunities for all children to overeat and be sedentary - it is not surprising these tendencies result in weight gain.

“It is therefore especially important to provide to best possible environment for all children to help protect those who are at higher genetic risk.”

I agree with the doctors - to a point. It is absolutely important we provide children with healthy food and encourage good fitness (although our motivations should be out of concern for good health, not weight-loss). It is absolutely important that parents model healthy relationships with food and weight.

But if a child is genetically predisposed to be fat, the healthiest diet in the world is not likely to alter their body’s setpoint range if it is meant to be fat. Avoiding junk and unhealthy foods may keep a child from gaining more weight, just as chronic starvation can keep a child underweight. But a healthy diet and good fitness will likely result in a child’s weight settling into the healthiest weight range for that child, based on his or her genetic makeup - a weight which may or may not be thin.

There’s a reason our bodies have evolved to weigh what they do, folks. One word: Survival. Instead of fighting and splicing and morphing our genetic compositions, let’s embrace it for the intricate, purposeful and complex evolution it is. I, for one, would rather not embark on that brave new world.

A study published this month in The American Journal of Psychiatry sheds new light on the anorexia-by-super-thin-models controversy.

A team of psychiatrists, led by Walter Kaye, of the University of Pittsburgh, conducted the study, which suggests that the brains of anorexia sufferers behave differently to those of the rest of the population and that certain people are born with a susceptibility to develop the condition.

“What this points to is that anorexics have something different going on in their brains, which marks them out as having either different structures in the brain or different pathways for processing thought that stay with them for life,” said Kaye. “We may be able, with a lot of hard work, to get them back to eating, but deep down in their brain there appear to be biological differences that don’t go away.”

For the specifics on the study, read more at The Times. (The Times article credits Kaye as a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, but according to the University of California San Diego website, he’s the new psychiatrist and program director of its Eating Disorders Program).

My quick take on the study’s findings:

I think the study marks a positive direction in looking at anorexia as a pathological condition, one whose roots are organic rather than as the result of neurosis. However, I wonder if the study’s grasp exceeds its reach.

The study is limited in scope, based on the responses of 13 former anorectics with that of 13 non-sufferers. Thirteen women can hardly be considered indicative of the eating disordered population as a whole.

While I agree that many with anorexia are genetically predisposed to develop characteristics of the disease, I don’t believe they are necessarily genetically predisposed to develop anorexia, or any other eating disorder. Rather, I think there exists a genetic propensity to developing characteristics that might very well manifest itself in an eating disorder - or any other number of addictions.

The study also doesn’t include the age of onset for the former anorectics in the study nor does the study attempt to explain why the most common age of onset for anorexia is adolescence. If anorexia were entirely a brain-centered disease, why wouldn’t such characteristics also be exhibited throughout childhood? Why is adolescence then a common starting point for many an anorectic?

The study also doesn’t account for why lowered rates of anorexia are found in eastern European and African countries, and much higher in industrialized, western cultures like the U.K. and the United States. If anorexia is entirely a genetic brain disease, it stands to reason that the genetic variance of the disease would then be more evenly distributed.

I do believe anorexia, like other eating disorders, often has much to owe to biological conditions already present. But nor can I ignore the fact that humans are also products of their social environments. Super-thin models, for instance, may not cause one to develop an eating disorder, but the prevalence and saturation of unrealistically thin women bombarding culture does have a powerful, if immeasurable, impact on many in society to then choose food and weight as a loci of obsession.

The characteristics Kaye describes of the anorexic mind are quite similar to other addiction-based behaviors. Therefore, there has to be some environmental influence leading one to choose food as a means of vice and not, say, sports or drugs or any number of thing people can and do become addicted to. Eating disorder-like characteristics may be genetically predestined, but our social environment is the petri dish in which a disorder simmers to life.

A study published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association reinforces what I, and other followers of the Health at Every Size movement, have been saying all along: It’s fitness, not fatness, that’s key to good health.

Researchers, led by Dr. Xumei Sui of the University of South Carolina and Columbia, studied the effects of fitness in adults over the age of 60. Sui and his colleagues showed that the adults who were more fit, lived longer - regardless of body fat.

It also revealed no significant differences in body fat measures between those who died and those who survived. Oops, so much for the Obesity Kills! scaremongering.

The authors concluded that:

“In this study population, fitness was a significant mortality predictor in older adults, independent of overall or abdominal adiposity.”

“Clinicians should consider the importance of preserving functional capacity by recommending regular physical activity for older individuals, normal-weight and overweight alike,” they added.

“We observed that fit individuals who were obese (such as those with BMI of 30.0 to 34.9, abdominal obesity, or excessive percent body fat) had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than did unfit, normal-weight, or lean individuals.“

Of course, you’re still gonna die at some point. But, chances are, it won’t be the fat that kills you.

People who know me describe me as a fairly positive and gasp, even perky kind of person. You kind of have to be a “people person” if you’re going to be a reporter; I mean, who wants to talk to a sour-faced prude, right?

When my circle of friends and I first began blogging years ago as a means of keeping up with one another, all I posted were works of creative non-fiction, usually about the inordinate amount of weird people with off-center social aberrations who are somehow drawn to me like a magnet. The combination of facial piercings with flame-red hair, along with my signatory “try anything” attitude, has led me into some terribly strange lands.

So, making the transition to a blog whose primary focus is on eating disorder awareness has been difficult. Eating disorders are endlessly depressing. There is nothing noble in starving oneself; nothing to be admired in sticking your fingers down your throat until you vomit. And all too often, stories in the media reinforce an already disordered culture, with positive news a rarity.

But talking about eating disorders doesn’t have to be all serious and depressing. The Calgary Sun reports today on an Alberta Children’s Hospital nurse who incorporates humor into her treatment of eating disordered patients, for which The Sun chose Naime Elain as its Nurse of the Month for November.

“It isn’t unusual to walk by the group treatment room and see Naime and the clients sporting glasses made of pipecleaners or hearing stories from clients how Naime has made up a word in a board game and tried to convince them it’s real,” said co-worker Lois McCormack, a case manager and family counselor at the Eating Disorder Program.

“Naime is rather infamous for her practical jokes and no staff member is immune.”

Humor, said Elain, is an important part of the healing process, especially since many of her patients are struggling in the darkest days of their lives with mental and emotional issues.

“When people have hit their rock bottom, we need to value their experience, but we also need to laugh about things and allow them to bring some pleasure back into their life,” she said. “Sometimes a joke about a circumstance we can all identify with is all they need.”

Elain isn’t the only eating disorder professional cracking jokes about the disease. Author and lecturer Jenni Schaefer regularly incorporates humor in her work as a speaker and writer on eating disorder related topics.

Comedienne duo Marcy Etlinger and Penelope Lombard inspire laughs with their skit “Two Thin,” performed at college campuses nationwide. And comedian Michelle Garb uses comedy to tell of her experiences overcoming anorexia in the widely-acclaimed skit “Fat Brain / Skinny Body.” Garb, too, has a new skit out, “I’m Going Mental,” which focuses on mental illness.

In her article, “The Therapeutic Use of Humor in the Treatment of Eating Disorders; or, There is Life Even with Fat Thighs,” social worker Sarita Broden insists that humor is “probably one of the most potent in the therapists arsenal.” She advocates the appropriate use of humor, offered with sensitivity, as one effective way to deal with difficult-to-reach patients.

Dr. Irina Webster also wrote about an experiment she conducted with six of her eating disordered patients: She asked them to laugh at least an hour a day. After two months, all six patients reported significant improvements in their mental and emotional states. Explains Webster:

…I think if you can laugh about something, than that something stops looking like a problem. If the problem is not a problem anymore you will let it go with ease.

What do you think about the use of humor in eating disorder recovery? Is laughter still the best medicine of all?