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Eating Recovery Center In the News: SheKnows.com
Is Your Teen into the eTriggers Trend?
Last week, Dr. Ovidio Bermudez, Medical Director of Child and Adolescent Services at Eating Recovery Center, was featured on SheKnows.com, a website dedicated to the provision of intelligent information, helpful resources and community support for women. In the article, Dr. Bermudez shares insights on how technology can trigger rigid behavior that fuels extreme dieting and exercise for kids and teens struggling with eating issues. Read on for an excerpt of the article, or click here to view the article in its entirety.
Tech Triggers
Though not a clinical term, eTriggers is a shortened way of referring to electronic- or technology-based activities that could potentially trigger someone to engage in dieting, exercise or disordered eating behaviors, says Ovidio Bermudez, M.D., the medical director of child and adolescent services at Eating Recovery Center in Denver, Colorado.
Kids and teens may use game consoles, computers, tablets and phones to study diet and exercise techniques. For example, calorie-counting smart phone or tablet apps that manage calorie intake or exercise-focused video games that measure current weight and calories burned. Healthy when used in moderation, but when taken too far, they can enable damaging behaviors.
In addition, there’s a myriad of websites, such as pro-anorexia or pro-bulimia websites or forums, that offer harmful tips to help children and adolescents learn and practice disordered eating behaviors, Dr. Bermudez adds. It’s important to recognize that these activities do not “cause” eating disorders. Eating disorders are complex, heritable diseases that involve bio-psycho-social factors, says Dr. Bermudez. “These triggers can simply kick-start one behavior that may be taken to an extreme, and they can serve as enablers for unhealthy food- or exercise-focused behaviors that have already begun.”
They want to be the best
Through websites, phone apps, games and social media forums, technology can trigger or enable an eating disorder. “An important part of the mindset of individuals struggling with eating disorders is a desire to learn ‘how to do it better’ and how to compete with others,” says Dr. Bermudez. “Both of these can be cemented by accessing information related to losing weight.” Plus, they compare themselves to other people with eating disorders and motivate themselves to “do it better” by learning new ways to drop weight and bond with others around their successes or failures in eating disorders behaviors.
Posted in Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, In the News, Uncategorized •
Eating Recovery Center In the News: Vail Daily
Vail Health: Bulimia and the brain
Recently, Dr. Ken Weiner spoke to a group of high school counselors at the Colorado High School Counselors Association Annual Conference about eating disorders and brain development. Click here to read the Vail Daily article in its entirety, or see below for an excerpt of the piece.
Don’t put your kid on a diet, because diets don’t work, says Dr. Kenneth Weiner, an expert in eating disorders and brain development.
Within three years, 90 percent of people weigh more than they did before the diet. The other 10 percent have built lifestyle changes into their lives, Weiner said.
Weiner is co-founder, CEO and chief medical officer of the Eating Recovery Center in Denver and has been treating eating disorders for more than 25 years. He talked to Colorado School Counselors Association’s annual conference at the Vail Cascade Resort & Spa on Friday.
To help adolescents avoid eating disorders, concentrate on who they are and not what they are, what’s on the inside rather than what’s on the outside, he said.
“We live in an obese society and childhood obesity is going to break the healthcare bank. My patients are the collateral damage,” Weiner said.
Nurture vs. nature
Eating disorders stem from nurture more than nature, he said, and so many things can feed that beast: Trauma, certain interests and hobbies, modeling, dancing, swimming, violence, culture, media.
“For many people with an eating disorder, it’s preceded by some sort of trauma,” Weiner said.
Still, genetics play a role.
Between 40 to 50 percent of the risk is genetic. Fifty to 60 percent is psychosocial. If her mother has it, a girl is 12 times more likely.
It’s as inheritable as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, Weiner said, and it’s treatable.
He said 85 percent of people with eating disorders get better within 7-10 years, Weiner said.
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