What happens to people with anorexia or bulimia who don't get treatment -- or who don't get enough of the right treatment? This is an important question because, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, only 10 percent of people with eating disorders are...

A recent article in the New York Times today gives an important overview of the many different definitions of recovery from anorexia. Also, the article is sure to spark debate among ED veterans, professionals, and families about just how elusive recovery really is.

I...

In a multitude of ways, eating disorders express anxiety. If you have a history of eating disorders, you're likely sensitive and perfectionistic. When ill, you not only exaggerate the rightness or wrongness of numbers on the scale, but you may also imagine there's a right way and a wrong way...

When parents are faced with an eating disorder in their family, alarm is a natural -- and necessary -- reaction. Alarm can spur action, and action can save the life of a child or young adult who's caught in the grip of an eating disorder. But what action should parents...

My last blog about the latest encouraging study of the Maudsley method as a treatment for anorexia brought forth a volley of comments. Some of those who wrote asked for more information about the risk factors that may contribute to eating disorders.

The first thing to keep in mind...

For years now, members of the eating disorders community have been watching and waiting for clinical trials to verify what families and treatment experts have been observing in practice: that the Maudsley Method is an extremely effective treatment for many young anorexia patients. Last week The...

At the National Eating Disorders Association conference last Saturday in New York, I had the delight of attending Susan Ringwood's presentation on "All Walks Beyond the Catwalk." Susan is the chief executive of b-eat, the leading UK charity for people with eating disorders. As...

For the past month, Muslims worldwide have been observing Ramadan by fasting during the daytime. As an NPR report explained at the beginning of the month, this holy period is a time for Muslims to "reflect on what it's like to go hungry. They fast from dawn...

The other day I was talking to my friend Alice, an Episcopalian priest who founded and runs a school and daycare center near LA's Skid Row for the children of local garment workers. Alice is one of the most inspiring, generous, and down-to-earth people I've ever met, and her ability...

What's wrong with this picture? More than 10% of the labor force is jobless. College grads, executives, high school dropouts, and the aging are all desperately looking for work. Yet the Federal government cannot find enough people willing to work for up to $24 an hour for the U.S. Census....

While writing my book Gaining several years ago, I kept tripping across evidence of a curiously cozy relationship between religion and eating disorders. My research took me into works like Rudolph Bell's outstanding Holy Anorexia, which chronicles the lives of hundreds of anorexic and bulimic Catholic saints. I was fascinated...

We've all heard the speculation about Major Nidal Hasan's terrorist motives for going on a shooting rampage in Fort Hood. I have no idea what his true motives were, but I know that his racial and religious profile jumps to the top of almost every story about him.

Imagine my...

Shortly after Bush claimed the 2000 election, I realized the Left had been caught flat-footed because we had no organizing system even remotely comparable to the Right's vast network of churches. I distinctly remember one conversation in which a friend and I struggled to come up with some equivalent network...

Self-injury is making headlines. According to the latest statistics, from 15% to 22% of all adolescents and young adults have intentionally injured themselves at least once in their lifetimes. That number spiked to 54% in one study of girls between ages 10 and 14. LA Times health reporter Shari Roan...

Simon Dumenco in Advertising Age today reported the demise of Cottage Living Magazine and likened major publishers like CL's parent Time, Inc. to the anti-government administration that's been butchering our government for the past eight years.

"Retrenching during an economic contraction is one thing," Dumenco writes, "But starving...

When a little boy shoves a girl in line and then tells the teacher, "She hit me," that's called projection.

When a cheating husband accuses his wife of infidelity, that's called projection.

And when a Presidential candidate with a dismal 20% voting record for disabled veterans accuses his opponent (who...

How can they do that? How could they think that?

I've spent the last few years researching the answers to these questions as they apply to issues like anxiety, obsession, and identity. In the heat of the current political campaign, it occurs to me that these answers also help to...

There is now ample scientific evidence that these disorders are biologically based mental illnesses. Anorexia nervosa has a higher mortality rate than alcoholism or schizophrenia, and...

With the end of the 2008 spring fashion Season in Paris coinciding with Eating Disorders Awareness Week next week, it seems a good time to ask what became of the international designers' grand promises to replace the look of starvation with a glow of health on the catwalks.

...

This campaign, Maria Shriver said, is really "about us, and what we can do when we come...