hi I’m Veronica with watchmojo.com and
today we’re speaking with dr. Howard
Steiger to better understand anorexia
nervosa and to clear up some common
misconceptions what is an eating
disorder we’re talking something that’s
structured around a constant
preoccupation with eating weight body
image and as a result usually involves
problem behaviors around eating too much
dieting starving oneself or feeling the
need to compensate for everything that’s
eaten so people wind up purging food
through vomiting through abuse of
laxatives through too much exercise the
best known ones are anorexia nervosa and
bulimia nervosa they’re kind of close
cousins they both share this kind of
idea of in real fear of losing control
over weight gain the constant obsession
with weight and a desire to lose it in
anorexia it’s literally like a phobia of
weight gain so people feel a terror of
eating anything that’s unfamiliar or new
or where they don’t know the ingredients
aren’t known or eating in a place where
they’re not going to be able to
compensate in some way by exercising or
by purging in some cases and so on this
is often thought of as the rich girl’s
disease is that true no that’s really
one of the myths about anorexia in fact
that’s got two of them in it because I
know actually VOSA doesn’t it doesn’t
only happen in young women or young
teenage girls in fact the peak
prevalence the largest number of people
affected by anorexia is more in an adult
age group you see it around the age of
28 and it’s certainly not a disorder of
affluence there’s a slight you know some
of the pressures that may have
contributed to anorexia may be rooted in
kind of upper-middle class culture or
you know chiefly orientation always
trying to look good kind of stuff but
that’s not the only factor that causes
that irax yeah and really anorexia
nervosa cuts across also full
you used to think it only happened in
kind of industrialized societies that
have that thinness value and in fact
most of the evidence we have suggests
that any accident also happens just
about on every surface of the planet
it happens all over the world it has
happened throughout history and it
certainly happens at times and places
that really in which no social pressure
towards thing this exists a culture
that’s crazy about thinness and dieting
like ours is of course helps you know
and so you’ll see more cases occurring
how this affect their overall health
well I mean you can’t starve yourself
without affecting every system in your
body
I mean it’s unfortunate anorexia nervosa
has the highest mortality rate of any
mental health problem aside from such
dramatic things it really has important
consequences for fertility and women
bone density problems you know people
who are malnourished wind up having
decalcification
the loss of calcium through the bones so
they’re going to become brittle they’re
prone to stress fractures and other
kinds of things like that
especially in those who purge you have
all kinds of effects on digestive tract
the esophagus has how come you can get
various kind of alterations and things
like that which can sometimes be quite
dangerous it does damage to dental
health if the teeth gradually get eroded
due to exposure to acid it affects all
organ systems when you test somebody on
standard medical tests you find
abnormalities of liver function kidney
function cardiac function digestive
function so and we’re talking about a
disorder that really messes you up
psychologically and medically now if
you’ve recovered from anorexia can you
easily fall back into your old habit
there’s no real rule there because you
need your source come in all severity x’
all kinds of shapes and sizes and all
kinds of durations you know so for some
people it’s a relatively transient thing
that kind of comes and goes during a
period of life stress for other people
it becomes a really anchored lifestyle
that’s really really difficult to
overcome
so some people retain a kind of
fragility that means you know it’s often
the case you have to be careful like a
former drug addict you don’t go back to
the heroin people have anorexia nervosa
have to be very careful you don’t go
back to dieting dieting for some people
is a dangerous behavior and we know that
there’s a certain there are biological
factors involved that mean that for some
people dieting does very powerful things
to brain chemistry and other things that
locks them in to the disorder people say
things like once you’re an anorexic
you’re always an anorexic and that’s
certainly not the case people overcome
anorexia nervosa every day thank you
very much it was great having you you’re
welcome
today we’re speaking with dr. Howard
Steiger to better understand anorexia
nervosa and to clear up some common
misconceptions what is an eating
disorder we’re talking something that’s
structured around a constant
preoccupation with eating weight body
image and as a result usually involves
problem behaviors around eating too much
dieting starving oneself or feeling the
need to compensate for everything that’s
eaten so people wind up purging food
through vomiting through abuse of
laxatives through too much exercise the
best known ones are anorexia nervosa and
bulimia nervosa they’re kind of close
cousins they both share this kind of
idea of in real fear of losing control
over weight gain the constant obsession
with weight and a desire to lose it in
anorexia it’s literally like a phobia of
weight gain so people feel a terror of
eating anything that’s unfamiliar or new
or where they don’t know the ingredients
aren’t known or eating in a place where
they’re not going to be able to
compensate in some way by exercising or
by purging in some cases and so on this
is often thought of as the rich girl’s
disease is that true no that’s really
one of the myths about anorexia in fact
that’s got two of them in it because I
know actually VOSA doesn’t it doesn’t
only happen in young women or young
teenage girls in fact the peak
prevalence the largest number of people
affected by anorexia is more in an adult
age group you see it around the age of
28 and it’s certainly not a disorder of
affluence there’s a slight you know some
of the pressures that may have
contributed to anorexia may be rooted in
kind of upper-middle class culture or
you know chiefly orientation always
trying to look good kind of stuff but
that’s not the only factor that causes
that irax yeah and really anorexia
nervosa cuts across also full
you used to think it only happened in
kind of industrialized societies that
have that thinness value and in fact
most of the evidence we have suggests
that any accident also happens just
about on every surface of the planet
it happens all over the world it has
happened throughout history and it
certainly happens at times and places
that really in which no social pressure
towards thing this exists a culture
that’s crazy about thinness and dieting
like ours is of course helps you know
and so you’ll see more cases occurring
how this affect their overall health
well I mean you can’t starve yourself
without affecting every system in your
body
I mean it’s unfortunate anorexia nervosa
has the highest mortality rate of any
mental health problem aside from such
dramatic things it really has important
consequences for fertility and women
bone density problems you know people
who are malnourished wind up having
decalcification
the loss of calcium through the bones so
they’re going to become brittle they’re
prone to stress fractures and other
kinds of things like that
especially in those who purge you have
all kinds of effects on digestive tract
the esophagus has how come you can get
various kind of alterations and things
like that which can sometimes be quite
dangerous it does damage to dental
health if the teeth gradually get eroded
due to exposure to acid it affects all
organ systems when you test somebody on
standard medical tests you find
abnormalities of liver function kidney
function cardiac function digestive
function so and we’re talking about a
disorder that really messes you up
psychologically and medically now if
you’ve recovered from anorexia can you
easily fall back into your old habit
there’s no real rule there because you
need your source come in all severity x’
all kinds of shapes and sizes and all
kinds of durations you know so for some
people it’s a relatively transient thing
that kind of comes and goes during a
period of life stress for other people
it becomes a really anchored lifestyle
that’s really really difficult to
overcome
so some people retain a kind of
fragility that means you know it’s often
the case you have to be careful like a
former drug addict you don’t go back to
the heroin people have anorexia nervosa
have to be very careful you don’t go
back to dieting dieting for some people
is a dangerous behavior and we know that
there’s a certain there are biological
factors involved that mean that for some
people dieting does very powerful things
to brain chemistry and other things that
locks them in to the disorder people say
things like once you’re an anorexic
you’re always an anorexic and that’s
certainly not the case people overcome
anorexia nervosa every day thank you
very much it was great having you you’re
welcome
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