College women at risk for eating disorder may benefit from online intervention

Over the course of a lifetime, about 0.5 to 3.7 percent of girls and women will develop anorexia nervosa, and about 1.1 to 4.2 percent will develop bulimia nervosa. About 0.5 percent of those with anorexia die each year as a result of their illness, making it one of the top psychiatric illnesses that lead to death.
Anorexia generally is characterized by a resistance to maintaining a healthy body weight, an intense fear of gaining weight, and other extreme behaviors that result in severe weight loss
. People with anorexia see themselves as overweight even when they are dangerously thin. Bulimia generally is characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating, followed by self-induced purging behaviors. People with bulimia often have normal weights, but like those with anorexia, they are intensely dissatisfied with their bodies. All eating disorders involve multiple biological, behavioral and social factors that are not well understood.

“Eating disorders are complex and particularly difficult to treat. In fact, they have one of the highest mortality rates among all mental disorders,” said NIMH Director Thomas Insel, M.D. “This study shows that innovative intervention can work, and offers hope to those trying to overcome these illnesses.”

A long-term, large-scale study has found that an Internet-based intervention program may prevent some high risk, college-age women from developing an eating disorder. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH), was published in the August 2006 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. A summary of this study is available on the website of NIMH.
The study suggests that relatively inexpensive options such as Internet-based interventions can have lasting effects on women at high risk of developing an eating disorder. However, the authors note that the results cannot be generalized widely because there were differences in the women’s baseline characteristics and treatment responses between the two sites used in the study.
Armani: Anorexia Isn’t Fashionable

Even public personalities started a fight against eating disorders, by trying to determine the fashion world to shift from extremely skinny models to girls with shapes closer to a healthy look. Designer Giorgio Armani has blamed stylists and the media for the fashion industry’s obsession with ultra-thin women.


Lose weight with TV's toughest fitness guru!

In London to host a music and fashion extravaganza with stars Beyonce, 50 Cent and Bono, Armani said no girl needed to be anorexic to be fashionable.

Medicine and fashion shaking hands for the health of humanity, that’s a big step forward to a world of harmony and borderless communication.