Month: September 2015

Reflections on the Weight Stigma Conference 2015

Andrea 6 Comments

This past week I had the opportunity to attend the third annual Weight Stigma Conference (WSC) in Reykjavik, Iceland. I lived Tweeted throughout, as did some others, so if you’re interested in seeing the social media from the conference I recommend checking out the #StigmaConf2015 hashtag on Twitter. A few people asked if I would blog about the conference, and I’m more than happy to do so! If you’re not a fan of conference recap blogs, stay tuned for our regular Science of EDs programming soon.

Overall, I thought this conference was fantastic. Though it was not a conference strictly geared toward eating disorders, weight stigma is not helpful for anyone in any kind of body and engaging in any kind of behaviours around food and exercise. It oversimplifies complex issues, makes body management a personal issue with strong political stakes, and reduces eating disorders and obesity to a binary … Continue reading →

Culture and Eating Disorders: Treatment Outcomes in Singapore and Hong Kong

Jacqueline

In this last post about eating disorders in Singapore, I’ll write about the one Singapore-based retrospective outcome study in relation to a similar retrospective study conducted in Hong Kong.

In the Singapore study, researchers reviewed the charts of 94 patients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa from 1992 to 2004 at the National University Hospital, looking back from the time of the study. They didn’t contact any of the subjects for follow-up. 49 were first seen as inpatients, 34 as outpatients, and 11 were seen as outpatients but later admitted. The hospital doesn’t have a specialized ED service, so the authors relied on dietetic notes that unfortunately don’t provide a full picture of the patients’ eating disordered behaviors and cognitions.

The authors wrote about patient ‘improvement’ (not recovery!) as making a weight gain of at least 0.5 kg, or about 1 pound. 83% of their patients attended follow up appointments, which lasted … Continue reading →

Sensing the Body: Bodily Experience in Anorexia Nervosa

Andrea 1 Comment

I’ve been reading a lot of literature on bodies and eating disorders lately as I gear up to write the theoretical paper that becomes the basis of my PhD qualifying exam. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve become a little preoccupied with teasing out my understanding of the relationship between body image and eating disorders in an era in which even saying those words in the same sentence sparks visceral reactions among listeners.

This post is not about whether body image causes eating disorders or not (sorry to disappoint). It is, however, about one of the best articles I’ve stumbled across thus far that seeks to shed some light on the ways in which those with eating disorders (specifically anorexia nervosa, in this case) might experience bodily sensations, which in my view is much more interesting than quibbling about whether body image is the primary causal factor for eating disorders.

In the article, … Continue reading →