Our New Forum

Next week we will continue the conversation regarding eating disorders and athletes. This week, we want to share with you some other exciting news: our forum is now up and running! This forum is replacing the telephone support group we offered in the past. The focus of the forum will be the same as the past: 

"This group caters to any individual seeking support in their recovery from an eating problem and the behaviors that achieve this. Conversations focused on numbers regarding weight, calories, BMI, etc. will be discouraged and redirected". 

We may have the capability in the future to offer more forum options related to the breadth of work we do. Support for family nutrition for example would be a very helpful forum for many of our clients. This will take time, especially since we are new to the forum scene. We look forward to hearing your feedback, suggestions, and thoughts. 

Please use the following directions to begin interacting on our forum:

Click this link: http://creatingpeacewithfood.freeforums.org/
 
The link will take you to the following page. Click Opening Forum:



See below where to click to join:


Fill in the necessary information to create an account and remember or save your password for future reference. The only information that will show up on your profile is your age. Once you are registered you can remove your age by the following steps: 

a.       Click User Control Panel in the top right area of your screen:

b.       Then click Profile on the left-hand side of the page. Once in your profile, scroll to the bottom, select the year list of your birthday and scroll to the top of that list. Select -- and press submit.

We know the pictures are a little blurry, but hope this facilitates your set up. Thank you for your flexibility! See you on the forum! 


 

Eating Disorders and Athletes

Let's talk athletes and eating disorders (ED or EDs). I think this topic will be very important to many of our teen clients, as well as their parents, and hopefully their coaches as well. EDs can affect athletes at any age though, so this information is not only for teens. We are inspired to dedicate time to this topic due to the number of our clients who are athletes. We also feel especially moved to write about this topic in light of a recent half-day conference we attended called "Athletes Grappling with Eating Disorders", offered by our local chapter of IAEDP (International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals). I'd like to thank Dr. Mimi Johnson and her presentation as a source of data for our article this week.

This week let's define terms and talk about prevalence of EDs in the athlete community.

First, some useful terms and what they mean:

1.       Disordered Eating

·     Inadequate replenishment of energy needs

·     Disordered eating can be Unintentional or Intentional

2.       Unintentional Disordered Eating

·    The inadequate intake is due to the athletes lack of knowledge, understanding, and information

·    This athlete doesn't have other concerns associated with the inadequate intake and once educated, will increase intake

3.       Intentional Disordered Eating

·     The inadequate intake is due to the athletes conscious attempt to lose weight or body fat

·     This form of Disordered Eating is more common that the Unintentional form

·     Some characteristics that may describe the Intentional Disordered Eater:

o   Restriction of total energy intake and/or fat intake is usually present

o   And the following may be present

- Binging/purging

- Compulsive exercising

- Criteria met for anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN)

Now that we have these terms defined, let's address the prevalence of EDs and athletes.

Various studies have sought to examine the prevalence of EDs in this community:

1.       Rosen et al, 1986 related to female college athletes:

·     Of 182 varsity athletes, 32% had disordered eating behaviors (unintentional/intentional not defined)

2.       Dummer et al, 1987 related to 955 competitive swimmers ages 9-1:

·     60% were trying to lose weight

·     12% were engaging in purging

·     2.5% were engaging in laxative use

3.       Beals and Manore, 2002 related to 425 female college athletes:

·     3.5% had AN = about 14 females

·     2.4% had BN = about 10 females

·     15% scored above the cutoff score for the EAT-26 (a risk evaluation tool for EDs)

o   Meaning that 15% of these athletes were at a high risk for having or developing an ED and need further evaluation. (That is about 64 females in the group!) 

4.       And here is one related to males. Perriollo, 2001 related to high school males in weight sensitive sports (wrestling for example):

·     10-15% of high school males in these sports practiced  unhealthy behaviors with 45% of wrestlers being at risk

So there you have it! I think that is enough technical chat for this week. Next week we will talk more on EDs and Athletes.

Brush Up On Mindful Eating

As we come to the end of the first month in 2012, I felt this would be a good time for a refresher on Mindful Eating. It seems to have come up a lot this month in our sessions so I hope this helps solidify further what we have talked about in our meetings this month: 

The 5th Key in Creating Peace with Food  

The last of the 5 Keys to Creating Peace with Food is Mindful Eating. I’m sure you’ve heard of it during the health segments on your local news station or read about it in one of the many popular books (such as Brian Wansink’s Mindless Eating (http://www.mindlesseating.org/).

 To me, Mindful Eating can be defined as:

Honor meal times :
Set meal times for yourself every 3 hours. Plan to eat at those times by making the necessary adjustments in your schedule. Eating isn’t an option-we have to eat to survive. So make it a priority.

Acknowledge hunger levels and taking action on what your body is telling you:
Rate how hungry you are on a scale of 1-10. (See scale below.) If you are feeling physical hunger, eat-no matter where you are, who you are with, what you are doing. Stop and eat something. When you are no longer feeling hungry, stop eating and wait 20 minutes before deciding if you would like more.

Seek joy in your food:
Ellyn Satter says, “When the joy goes out of eating, nutrition suffers.” And I couldn’t agree more! To illustrate the point imagine this: you are at a local farmer’s market and it is the first week for fresh peaches. A vendor hands you a slice. The smell of the fruit fills your nose as the juices run down your hand. The soft ripe flesh is giving under your pinch as you place the slice on your tongue. It is cool and sweet in your mouth and evokes memories of your childhood.  This is seeking joy in your food.

Make providing nourishing food to yourself a priority:
All things eat to survive. For such an important survival tool, we take it for granted and often undervalue the art of providing ourselves with life giving food. Don’t fall victim to society’s de-valuation. Take ownership of your right to eat. Plan your meals, have emergency back-ups ready when plans change unexpectedly, and choose your foods wisely. Using the meal planning process can be very helpful in achieving this.

Weekly Challenge: Choose two of the 4 mindful eating strategies above to put into practice this week.