Welcome

Eating disorders are among the saddest because they often afflict individuals who are extraordinarily intelligent, giving and sensitive. Those affected tend to put others before themselves, shoulder huge amounts of stress in silence, and carry an emotional load far too big for any one person to handle.

Please feel free to browse the site. If you or someone you love has an eating disorder, this site has many resources to help you on the road to recovery. Eating disorders can be conquered, all it takes is understanding, commitment, and willpower.

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Purging Disorder?

Purging Disorder has been suggested as a potential addition to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) after an Iowa researcher identified individuals who demonstrated purging without the often associated pre-purge binge eating.  The Yahoo article mentioned that while purging is by no means a new phenomenon, disordered behaviours exhibited in previously unrecognized ways may catalyse new understandings of eating disorders and may help to diagnose them.

What is significant about this research finding is that it may help physicians in the diagnosis of eating disorders, in part because it suggests that treatment may be required for those who do not exactly fit the bill of anorexia nervosa or another more rigidly defined eating disorder, but also because the identification of specific sub-behaviours may create more of a checklist, which may be helpful in assessing the severity of the condition - which is often now performed based on the physical or physiological wellbeing of the individual.

I applaud any research efforts into potential sub-behaviours of eating disorders as they will more likely help define the scope of the illness rather than associations to caloric intake or physical appearance, which many now understand are merely symptoms.  Several ED counsellors seek these sub-behaviours during their diagnosis, often revealed during questionnaires or informal interviewing, which are remarkably telling of the underlying psychological issues.