Psychoeducation for Eating Disorders: Motivational or Distressing?

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of primarily psychoeducational interventions for people with eating disorders (EDs). It irks me that the overall theory in implementing this kind of intervention seems to be: if they only knew what they were doing to their bodies, people with EDs would take better care of themselves. Of course I take issue with this idea – if knowing that EDs were harmful to one’s health was enough to make the changes needed to not have an ED anymore, far fewer people would be struggling.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, a psychoeducational program is one that focuses on educating people about a mental illness, including what qualifies as pathology, what the behaviours look like, what the harms are, and what possible interventions exist. To be fair, there are not that many examples of purely psychoeducational interventions for … Continue reading →

Whose Culture is it Anyway? Disentangling Culture and Eating Disorders – Part 6

I thought about writing a post about the factor structure of popular eating disorder scales to celebrate my completion of an advanced statistics course in structural equation modelling. When I sat down to read some articles about that, though, I found myself side-tracked– and thoroughly uninterested in deconstructing scale psychometrics. So with a promise to do that at some point, I return to a favourite topic of mine: culture and eating disorders.

When I was writing about culture and eating disorders for the blog last year, I received quite a few requests for articles about eating disorders in developing countries. I suspect that the desire for this kind of article stems from a need to highlight (for the doubters) that eating disorders are serious mental health issues that can impact anyone who is predisposed, regardless of whether they live in a media-saturated landscape or not. As I noted in the … Continue reading →

Culture and Eating Disorders: A Singaporean Perspective — Part 2

I previously looked at two retrospective studies of anorexia patients in Singapore, which primarily concerned female patients. In this study, Tan et al (2014) looked at 72 male-identified patients diagnosed with all forms of eating disorders.

  • 1% had anorexia nervosa (15.3% binge-purge subtype, 20.8% restrictive subtype)
  • 3% had bulimia nervosa (27.8% purge subtype, 5.6% non-purge subtype)
  • 5% had EDNOS
  • 9% had BED

The mean age at intake was 19.9 years old; patients were mainly students (41.7%) and national servicemen (41.7%). Compulsory army service (National Service) usually takes place in the two years after high school graduation, though some may defer until completing further studies. The typical age range for those in National Service is 19-24.

Of the patients in the study, 88.9% identified a precipitating factor for their eating disorder, including being overweight (59.7% reported pre-morbid obesity) and having people make comments about their body. 68.1% of patients … Continue reading →

Culture and Eating Disorders: A Singaporean Perspective — Part 1

Some previous posts on this blog have explored whether eating disorders might (or might not) be considered culture-bound, or in other words specific to or presenting specifically in certain cultures. If you consider eating disorders to be “culture bound,” they would present primarily in Western cultures, with non-Western cultures ‘receiving’ eating disorder pathology through Westernization. In this post, I explore eating disorders in the Singaporean context to continue to unpack the relationship between culture and eating disorders. Singapore is an interesting place in which to look at eating disorders (not just because I live there) because it complicates the idea of “culture-boundedness.”

Studies have been conducted in Asia; primarily in Hong Kong and to a lesser extent Japan. Most notably, Lee (1991) found non-fat-phobic presentations in Hong Kong supported by Ngai, Lee & Lee (2000) (see this post for more on the Ngai study). Singapore is … Continue reading →

Not So Fast: Is There a Connection Between Religious Fasting and Eating Disorders?

I’ve always wondered about how being encouraged to fast for religious reasons might impact those who are vulnerable to eating disorders and those who already have eating disorders. I can’t imagine it would be easy to be around others who were fasting in the name of religion while struggling with an eating disorder. Equally, I can certainly see the dangers of participating in fasting for those who are predisposed to eating disorders.

Despite not being religious myself, however, I understand that fasting is important to some people who subscribe to religions that encourage the practice. So, how might we balance the potential dangers of fasting with the freedom of religious observance? And, what is the impact of religious fasting on individuals with eating disorders, or those developing eating disorders?

In this post, I’ll highlight some of the main findings from 2 studies about religious fasting and eating disorders: one quantitative … Continue reading →