Eating Disorders in Middle-Age Increasing

It's not really surprising. Given that a lot of people with eating disorders are never treated due to lack of treatment options or insurance problems, they were likely just never treated. But once again, though the cultural obsession with thinness may form the outlet, eating disorders are not about the food or ultimately about being thin; they are coping methods that are hidden in the cultural desire to be thin, and addictions to chemicals in the brain which the behaviors produce. Wanting control, wanting to stay out of everyone else's way, wanting to numb out intolerable emotions: these are what eating disorders are about and are what always get lost in the discussions of eating disorders.

Eating disorder often come from great peer pressure from your friends and family as they tease you about your size and weight...

Being anxious to lose weight, people tend to push themselves too hard by not eating at all and this eventually leads to eating disorder which is very unhealthy when trying to lose weight...

Clarie

This does not surprise me with all the media out there obsessing about it & the magazines too! I see some of these shows talking about how this or that person is overweight or gained some weight or is heavy & they are not even overweight for the general population! When you think that the TV puts 10 pounds on a person & so many of the stars already look grotesquely thin, meaning they are thinner than what they appear on TV, it is no wonder that people get screwed up.

Also, stresses of the time right now can make people not eat as much as eat too much.

Just another thought.. "change of life" hormones. Being in that position, it is a drag to work hard, eat right but the body still rebels. I have made adjustments for this but many women get very depressed among other things during this time not only to weight & body changes but the emotional hormone turmoil. I doubt this is a bid % of the prob but still can be some of it.

I wonder if the increased media attention given to eating disorders -- especially disorders other than anorexia -- has helped women know to seek help. I always just thought I "had no willpower" until I started reading about starve/binge cycles and overexercise in terms of eating disorders. It took me until age 43 to finally find professional help. It was a relief to find that I had an eating disorder rather than just thinking I was a diet failure.

I agree, this cultural fixation with body image is driving women (men as well, I'm sure, but I don't see it) to desperate lengths. I see it every day in my training center.

I wonder, however, if this problem has always existed and is only gaining traction as a topic of conversation now due to media proliferation, or if it has always been as severe an issue as it is today.

In any event this is another cautionary tale about media-driven body image obsession. In our last moments of life I wonder how much we'll regret the hours wasted worrying about things like love handles and crow's feet....

heh.. "abusing laxatives". That's a fun party prank!

But in all seriousness, this doesn't even surprise me. What I want to know is the relative rate of increase between the middle-aged and the teens.

I predict that the rate of eating disorders in teens is going up as WELL, the difference between the two is where the interesting bit lies, because that alone will tell us if it's the "Be skinny" culture to blame, or if the middle aged are just being a bit "extra" when it comes to weight loss.

Granted this could all be rooted in the "be skinny" culture but hey, who said that a paradox is easy to live with?!

This news doesn't surprise me, either. I think a lot of older women turn to destructive eating patterns to cope with things in their lives that they can't change...aging, having a crappy job they don't like, the fact that their kids are growing up and moving out, disconnecting from their husbands, etc. Combine that with the fact that the media always seems to focus on how thin people are as a measure of their self-worth and it's very easy to develop an eating disorder when you're older. There are probably a lot of women that are really good at hiding their disorder so they appear functional to society, but are now deciding to seek help because they don't want to spend the rest of their lives being bulimic/anorexic/EDNOS.

Thank you for this story. If it helps just one person, it's worth it!

Whats Surprising is how eating disorders are still associated to women/girls.

I know just as many males with ED Not Diagnosed and eating and exercise related distortions.

What is sadder is how my teenage little brother who is very naturally lean and long thinks he is 'fatter' than me. It doesn't surprise me how me being a girl was called anorexic many times but he's a boy! So he's just 'skinny'.

Increasing disorder eating habits in teenagers is very dangerous for our and coming generation's health. Health awareness is necessary to avoid this evil.