Welcome to The Eating Disorder Institute

You can do two different kinds of meditation, Passive or Dynamic. Passive meditation is when you put yourself into a meditative state (an Alpha state) using just relaxation techniques. Passive meditation is very helpful for stopping your obsessive thoughts, eliminate worry, guilt and anger. But once you have reached a meditative level to just wait for constant improvement is not enough because you are likely to relapse in the mean time.

What I suggest you should do is to go beyond passive meditation and train your mind for organized dynamic activities.

By dynamic activities I mean to add on to your meditative practice a healing visualisation technique. This technique requires you to visualize yourself as a healthy, happy and vibrant person while you are on a meditative level in your mind.

There are four steps involved in this:

1step. Go into a meditative level, the alpha state like you do in normal passive meditation. You can do counting or just sit quietly and focus on your breath or other parts of your body. Do this for at least 5-6 minutes or as long as it takes for you know that you achieve a passive meditation level.

2 step. Imagine there is a screen in front of you like when you’re at the movies. Imagine on the screen yourself in your current condition – whatever you are like now: stressed from an eating disorder, binging and purging, starving yourself, overexercising or taking laxatives. See what you really look like now. Relive these feelings for the moment.

3 step. Stop thinking of this scene and imagine gently pushing it off the screen to the right hand side. Now, on the empty screen imagine another scene where you are healthy, vibrant, radiant, confident and happy. No signs of illnesses or any conditions should be on the scene. Visualize every detail of your ideal “you”. Visualize it vividly and feel the feelings of what your ideal “you” should feel like happiness, joy, pride, confidence etc.

Now play with this image, put colour into it, action and pictures. What do the clothes you are wearing look like, they should invoke good feelings, imagine yourself doing something useful and positive, visualize people around you, see yourself sharing a meal with these people chatting happily, enjoying yourself. Do this for at least 10-15 minutes.

4 step. Finish visualization by counting from 1 to 10 and open your eyes.
Now you can be confident that you have just put forces in motion through visualisation that will make you healthy, free and happy. As you gradually increase your skills doing this, you will notice that you will be able to believe in your progress towards curing your eating disorder more and more. In time and with practice the results you achieve doing this kind of dynamic meditation will astound you more and more.

I recommend you repeat these dynamic meditation techniques at least twice a day: in the morning after getting up from your bed, and at night just before going to bed. If follow these techniques and do it regularly and correctly for at least one month, you will be surprised at how good you will feel.

You will become more confident, your belief system will change for the better and you will see yourself as a much more powerful person than you use to be before beginning to do these dynamic meditation techniques.

To read more about mindfulness training for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

In this article I am going to help you learn how to meditate with the aim of stopping your eating disorder. After you learn to do this, you will attain a level in your mind where you will be able to spark your imagination into letting go your eating disorder.

Amazing things happen while doing meditation and the peace you find in calming and freeing your body and mind is awesome. The more you meditate, the deeper you go within yourself and the easier it will be for you to separate the eating disorder from your own self.

One of the major problems with eating disorder sufferers are that people can’t separate themselves from their ED and believe that the thoughts the eating disorder is sending them are their own thoughts: which they are not.
By realizing “your own self” you will know which thoughts come from you and which come from the eating disorder.

Your body and mind will benefit also. At first, you will find that worries, anger and the feelings of guilt are absent while you are meditating. As time goes on, they stay away for longer, until one day they are gone for good.

Feelings of being obsessed with food and body weight will gradually fade too. If your food obsession returns in a few weeks after starting your meditation, then by increasing the time and deepening the regular meditation will neutralize the feelings that make your body sick. Here is all you have to do to begin to meditate.

When you awaken in the morning sit on the edge of the bed and set the alarm clock for fifteen minutes in advance in case you drift off to sleep during the exercise. Close your eyes and look upward at a 20-degree angle. This position of the eyes alone is a proven trigger to produce a meditative state in the brain.

Then, slowly, start counting backwards from one hundred to one. You should focus just on counting and not on anything else. If you keep your mind totally on counting only you will soon be in meditation state.

Do this counting technique at least twice a day in the morning after waking up and at night just before go to bed.
If you stick with this technique and do it for at least 10 days without break you will notice that your obsessive thoughts that make you binge-purge, starve yourself or over-exercise will not bother you as much. You will soon realize that a meditation state is incompatible with your obsession, anger, worries and guilt.

For some of you who find this technique too difficult to do, there are other methods to meditate available that may suit you better, so don’t dismiss it. Guided meditation methods for eating disorders are readily available and you can certainly try them out and get great results and success with your health and happiness.

To read more about meditation for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

There are many kinds of meditation techniques available these days.  How to choose which one is the best for a person with an eating disorder? 

Are any methods better than the others? 

Meditation is a practice of focusing your attention for some time on specific emotional states, mantras (non-religious), breath, intentions, specific focal points, visualization, thoughts, or simply being aware of what is happening in the present moment.

But please don’t think because we used the word meditation that you have to become a Zen monk or some kind of guru who sits on top of a mountain in India some place.

We are also not talking about some weird religious cult or anything like that. We are talking about scientific techniques proven by modern day science. In fact we like to use the term Mindful Awareness as this is one of the secrets to beating an eating disorder.   

To choose the right meditation technique (Mindful Awareness) for an eating disorder sufferer let’s look at what kind of meditation are the most common nowadays.

1. Body-Centered meditation. This includes yoga, tai chi, pranayama, and gigong. All of them use gentle movement, deep breathing, stretching and being present in your own body.
2. Heart-Centered meditation. This includes Buddhist loving-kindness meditation and Christian prayer. These practices require a focused attention through repetition of phrases that reinforce loving intention and devotion. 
3. Mind-Centered meditation. This includes Buddhist Insight meditation, Hindu focus on the “Third eye” and Transcendental meditation. These are mantra-based meditations and can be learned only from an authorized master who gives a unique mantra for every student. 
4. Spirit-Centered meditation. This includes communion with God, Source, or Spiritual meditation. One example of this is “Centering Prayer” a technique in which your intention goes beyond the relaxation or health benefit. In this meditation you have surrender to God that is the Source of your Being.

Each meditation system has certain benefits and people with eating disorders can practice any of them if it is what they believe in.

But has previously stated we recommend a kind of meditation called Mindful Awareness.   

People with eating disorders need a special focus on resolving their issues like stopping urges to binge, purge or starve while meditating. This is important for them because until they learn to ignore, re-label, re-value, and re-focus their thoughts about food, weight and body image issues, they wouldn’t be able focus on anything else. That makes all the above meditation techniques except Mindful Awareness difficult for them.

First if they learn to concentrate by focusing on how to cope with their abnormal food and weight urges that this is much more helpful to them.

This special meditation can be done in an upright seated position either in a chair or cross-legged on a blanket on the floor, even lying down. The spine is straight yet relaxed. Eyes can be closed to better access a relaxed state. Then by listening to specific guidance (on a CD, iPod etc) telling them how to deal with their urges (binging, purging, starving, etc) they can reach their subconscious mine where the ED lives.

By listening and following the instruction while in meditative (Mindful Awareness) state they can benefit and over time learn to control the ED voices that keep them locked into their eating disorder.

The benefits from doing this special meditation are:

1) Reduction of stress and anxiety,

2) Decrease of urges to overeat and purge,

3) Improvement of food toleration in anorexics,

4) Improved confidence, calming the mind, clarity of thinking, 

5) Improvement in motivations, understanding of happiness and indentifying their purpose in life.

To get significant and life-changing benefits from this kind of meditation people should start with as little as 5-20 minutes a day practiced consistently over time.

Generally speaking, mediation (Mindful Awareness) can help enormously to improve mental, physical and spiritual health of people suffering with eating disorders.

To read more about mindfulness training for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Meditation (or mindfulness training) is proven to be very helpful for eating disorder sufferers. If practiced regularly, meditation can balance abnormal mental states of patients. It can also bring them peace and stability.

The brains of eating disorder sufferers are overloaded with abnormal thoughts and feelings to the point that they sometimes have to give up on their studies, jobs and relationships; because they simply feel that they can’t cope with anything anymore.

Meditation (or mindfulness training) is not a magic cure for all the problems that an ED patient has, but it can help enormously to improve their mental, physical and spiritual state of mind. Hence clearing up some of their muddled thinking and straightening out some of their obsessive tendencies.                          

First, let’s define what is meditation? Meditation (or mindfulness training) is consciously focusing your attention for a period of time on something positive. It is a process where a person is guiding her/his focus in a specific way: directing it to promote health, personal development and spiritual growth. Mindfulness training can be use to drive a person’s thoughts away from food, weight issues, personal problems and bad emotions.

An eating disorder at its roots is a disorder of attention or a too regimented thinking process. All the problems sufferers have started with abnormal attention; or their attention always focused on the wrong things. To cure an eating disorder people need to be able to re-train their whole attention focusing system. That means to learn how to focus on constrictive positive things, and stop focusing on the things that give abnormal feelings like food, weight, body image etc. Meditation is an indispensable tool for doing this.

Will this be an easy process: absolutely not.

The results of meditation will depend on the chosen technique and the intention a person brings to her/his practice, meaning are they really serious about getting rid of their ED?

If you are a sufferer, you may say I really want to stop, but in reality deep inside you are not willing to do the hard yards, so you will remain the same regardless of what you do.

So: are you ready, really ready? Or are you just playing lip service to your ED?

This can be a confusing time for many sufferers. Do I want to get better or not? You have to choose no one can do it for you. But how can you find out?

The answer lies in getting in touch with the real you, not the ED you, but the person who lives inside, the healthy person you can become again: meditation will help you find that person.

In general, when eating disorder sufferers meditate they can expect to experience:

-          A reduction in stress, muscular tension and bring about a state of general relaxation.

-          Decreased or even the eliminate the urge to binge or purge

-          A better tolerance towards food in the case of the anorexic or bulimic

-          Feel happier, more peaceful and more compassionate towards others

-          Improved confidence

-          Calm, clear and a more focused mind

-          Identifying their life purpose and gain a sense of spiritual connection with that purpose.

Another major skill a person can learn during mindfulness training (meditation) is the ability to make clearer choices. That means the ability to do constructive things while their eating disorder tells them to do non- constructive things, like binging, purging, starving, over-exercising, takings diuretics or laxatives. Initially it may be hard to do but the more a person meditates the easier it becomes, because their mind will gradually start to lose the old conditionings it had.

Every person who learns how to meditate becomes a unique individual. This is because these people are able to work and understand their previous conditioning and change it through an awareness of their problem. This will make them a stronger person and set them free.

There is an old saying in Buddhism that all changes start from being dissatisfied or even from suffering. It is not the matter of where the source of your eating disorder stems from or the reason why: but the best reason to start meditating is your eating disorder.

Using special mindfulness training (meditation) developed for eating disorders can easily change your perspective fast. You even don’t need a special trainer and you don’t need to go anywhere, just sit at home and follow the instructions and you will see an amazing difference.

To read more about mindfulness training for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Since eating disorders are rooted in emotional conflicts, the solution for the problem can be found in emotional healing. Emotional healing doesn’t happen instantly; it is a process. Many existing treatments nowadays promote only a physical fix while the emotional component is severely underestimated. This could be the reason why some ED treatments failed to make the person better. It is simply because the deep intimate emotions remain unchanged after these kinds of treatments.

To make any eating disorder treatment successful people should concentrate on the emotional healing of the sufferer, foremost.

There are 5 steps to emotional healing:

1. Acknowledgment: One must say” I need emotional healing because my emotions are not in balance at the moment”. They have to believe this is true, not just say the words.

2. Locate the cause of the pain: Emotional pain is located in the subconscious mind so it is basically impossible to find out the true cause of pain by simple thinking or rationalising. One should have access to their subconscious mind to sort out the problems. The best way to do this is through mindfulness training techniques. Mindfulness is a mental and emotional state when the person is fully aware of her/his owns body and brain. It is when communication with the subconscious mind becomes easier.

3. Cleansing the emotional wound: This can only be done on the subconscious level of awareness, so mindfulness techniques are a great help for doing this. Cleansing occurs when the person reassess the old emotional hurts, attaches a new meaning to them and maybe even replaces them with other more constrictive emotions.

4. Receive healing: This means accepting a new positive emotional state which comes with the healing and hanging on to it. When a person becomes more mindful she/he should be grateful even for little positive changes in their emotional state. Feeling grateful for small subtle changes will attract bigger changes and so on. This means receiving and accepting the healing at all levels.

5. Strengthen the weak areas: This means to continue on with a new way of living and maintaining a new level of awareness for the rest of their life. This is the only way to stop an eating disorder from coming back. It is easy for many sufferers to cling to their old programming as the weak areas seem safe and comfortable. It is scary for some to take the next step and face their weaknesses head on, but it has to be done regardless of how hard it may seem.

To accomplish these 5 steps the person should remain non-judgemental and mindful. Mindfulness is a mental state when one becomes an observer of themself and they have the ability to see things without criticism. People’s emotions often make that person sway to one or the other side: too far either way can lead to disorders.

But mindfulness does not take sides, mindfulness does not get obsessed with the good stuff, it does not try to sidestep the bad stuff, it takes a balanced path.

Mindfulness doesn’t cling to the “pleasant” and there is no fleeing from the “unpleasant” either. A person has to learn to face the ED and control their ED demons and mindfulness training will achieve this.
Mindfulness sees all experiences as equal, all thoughts as equal, and all feelings as equal. Nothing is suppressed. Nothing is repressed. Mindfulness does not play favourites.

The beauty of being mindful is it will cause emotional healing in the eating disorder sufferer and it does not matter how long one has had the disorder.

Emotional conflicts will be solved by just being mindful and wounds will be healed. Mindfulness training is also harmless; it has no side effects and is beneficial for the health of the majority of people, even non-ED sufferers.

Dr Irina Webster MD is a Director of Women Health Issues Program. She is an author and a public speaker. To read more about meditation for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Eating disorders are rooted in emotional struggles. These struggles are deep emotional conflicts within the sufferer, these are called self-conflicts.

How the conflicts started in the first place?

This process begins by fantasizing at a very early age. People fantasize a script, for example like a Hollywood production focusing on TV stars or other celebrities. Then they start rehearsing their part. As they go, they either give up on their initial part and take up a new one, or they practice the first part and role -play that script out until it becomes who they think they are. Practising the script automates their behaviour and it becomes fixed.

For example, a young girl perceived that she is overweight. By looking through magazines, watching TV and movies she finds herself a role- model that is slim, polished and glamorous and play out this picture in her mind. From the same source she gets a script to follow to achieve this kind of unattainable look. She rehearses it until it becomes automatic and turns into an eating disorder, anorexia or bulimia.

Her imprinting environment plays a significant role in the alternative scripts available to her. If her parents happen to be too strict or uncaring, she would be unable to develop a positive coping strategy to counteract her developing problems. In some problematic families being warm and friendly is seen as an embarrassment, so the child becomes cold and aloof to compensate.

Self-conflict is a conflict between different “selfs” inside one person. There are 4 different “selfs”:

1. The actual self.
It is the private self. This self consist of thoughts we wish we didn’t have and actions we wish we haven’t done. It also contains our self-esteem, our attractiveness, and our secret ambitions. Eating disorders sufferers may dream of looking like a slim movie star, or a sport champion etc. Her/his self-esteem is really proportional to a degree of how alike she/he looks compared to their famous role-model they are trying to emulate.

2. The ideal self.
This self is built by culture and society. Ideal self is about living a perfect life, without any mistakes and therefore without room for growth.

3. The ought-to-be self.
This self is about our “should” and “oughts” which have been learned from our culture and our society but they are not ours. For example, when a swimming coach tells a young girl: ” You should lose weight immediately in order to fit the criteria for the swimming completion.” Initially the girl was probably OK with the way she was and didn’t think she needs to lose weight immediately. Her swimming coach installs the “ought-to-be self” in her. Her “ought-to-be self” may go into conflict with her “actual self” after the coach’s comments and if she is vulnerable she will develop an eating disorder in order to comply with the losing weight rules that have been set in her mind.

4. The desired self.
This is a self we believe we could be and desire to be. This self is especially obvious in young people when they plan for the future. Later in life this self can be a source of discontent if the desires have not been fulfilled. For example, a woman after 30 suddenly develops an eating disorder. This eating disorder is very likely to be a consequence of discontentment due to her unfulfilled desires of an earlier time (or the “desired self”).

What is a solution for solving this self-conflicts? Emotional healing would be the answer and you can put it into 5 steps:

1. Realize that one has emotional conflicts and they are probably the cause of the eating disorder.
2. Believe that one should and can solve these self- conflicts.
3. Accept that emotional healing is the only way to solve these internal conflicts.
4. Go through the emotional healing process.
5. Follow the emotional healing strategies as a way of living your life.

Emotional healing is the only answer to resolve self-conflicts in eating disorder sufferers. If emotional healing does not occur during a particular treatment – there is little hope for this kind of treatment being helpful.

Maybe in this case the person ought to look for different alternatives. Mindfulness training seems to prove itself as a great emotional healer for these kinds of ED sufferers. It has been proven that if one is mindful and aware, one can experience true freedom and liberation from all their self conflicts.

Dr Irina Webster MD is a Director of Women Health Issues Program. She is an author and a public speaker. To read more about mindfulness for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Most  eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are linked to significant stress, mood disturbance, anxiety, phobias, substance abuse, and physical complications. All these factors have to be addressed when people are trying to overcome their Anorexia- bulimia.

Mindfulness training is a technique which can help to cope with all these factors. Mindfulness means a calm awareness of body functions, feelings, emotions, thoughts and sensations. Mindfulness consists of paying attention to an experience at the present moment — without moving into thoughts from the past or concerns about the future. Using mindfulness training, people with anorexia – bulimia can attain control over their body and mind.

What exactly does mindfulness do for the mind and body?  The main benefits of mindfulness are:
1.Calm and quiet the mind. This will bring more happiness, joy, positive feelings, appreciation and gratitude in people’s lives.  It will also increase kindness to yourself and others which is necessary for ED people as they are often bad to themselves and others due to their conditioning.

2.Diminish the grip of habitual responses that causes suffering. ED sufferers all have certain habitual responses to their feelings, thoughts and emotions. For example, bulimics have habits to binge-purge at a certain time a day; anorexics have strict habits and routines about their diets and exercising.
Mindfulness can diminish these habitual behaviours to the point that the sufferer is able to choose how she/he is going to behave at a particular moment.

For example, instead of realizing 10-30 minutes later that you’ve been lost in bad thoughts about your body, weight, food, or your bad memories or fantasies from the past, you as a person can stop her/himself after only 30-60 seconds. With practise, people can increasingly observe these habitual responses and choose to respond in other more constructive ways.

3.Develop a stronger “observing self”. This means to observe what one does . It is like becoming a third person who sits inside your own chest and constantly watchs what you do.
Mindfulness makes a person  become an observer of what one does, think and feel.  This  helps you to have  better control over anorexic or bulimic thoughts and behaviours.

For example, when a person gets stressed, instead of reaching for alcohol or going on a starving or binge –purge cycle , the person  could simply sit and  observe the negative emotions and sensations which were brought on by the stress  until they go away.

Unlike relaxation techniques, mindfulness can be developed to the point where it can be practiced in the middle of stressful situations. So instead of reacting to stress a person starts to respond wisely. While being mindful a person can still remain alert and respond appropriately to the situation at hand.

4.Slow down the pace of thoughts and become more attune to the present moment.   Anorexia and bulimia sufferers often complain that they have too much continual inner “chatter” and images from the past or from the future in their minds.

This chatter and images don’t simply go away, because that’s the nature of the human mind. But they can settle down with practice. This settling down of mental processes bring relaxation and freedom. With practice one will have the ability to choose what to think about instead of being dragged along with uncontrolled thoughts and feelings. This effect can be experience just after 8-12 minutes of a mindfulness state of mind. So, if one practices mindful awareness at least 10 -15 min a day, it may be possible for him/her to choose what to think instead of their thoughts going uncontrolled.

Mindfulness will also increase your concentration and people can perform tasks , study and work with better accuracy. It also improves the immune system and general health. It regulates the autonomic nervous system which control automatic functions of the body organs. Mindfulness is a great anti- aging  factor as it improves metabolism of the cells.

Most of anorxics and bulimics who practice mindfulness find it  an incredible tool to beat their problem right at its root.

Dr Irina Webster

You can read about healing meditation for eating disorders CDs at http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Many researches have proven now that people with eating disorders derive a lot of benefits from doing meditation. Eating disorder sufferers have disturbances in autonomic nervous system, problems with impulse control and many emotional problems. All these can be improved with regular meditation.

You see, human beings are made up of three components—physical, mental and emotional. You can think of it as like a triangle with the same length sides. To correct eating disorders all the sides of triangle have to be balanced.

The Mental side represents the knowledge people learn about their condition and how to cope with it.  The physical side represents the natural strength of a person’s body which we inherit from parents. The Emotional side of the triangle is the one which always becomes unstable in people with eating disorders.

That’s why eating disorders sufferers have very bad mood swings, uncontrollable negative thoughts, long-standing bad feelings and painful sensations in different parts of the body that they try to moderate with food (obsessive eating or abstaining from food).

Emotional strengthening is the key to curing many eating disorder problems. Meditation and relaxation techniques are great strategies to do for emotional strengthening in order to become healthy again.

In order to understand about emotional strengthening, you first need to understand a bit about how the brain works. You’re probably aware that our brains work across a range of different levels or brain-wave frequencies. While the range is actually continuous, it is divided for convenience into 4 categories—beta, alpha, theta and delta.

As adults, we spend most of our waking time in the beta area. Beta is where we do our logical thinking, rationalising and planning.  Stress also occurs in the beta wavelength but on high frequencies beta waves. Eating disorder sufferers spend nearly all their time on high frequencies beta waves where the problem lies.

Alpha, on the other hand, while still an “awake” state, is that relaxed, day-dreamy state that you can go into when you are doing something creative (eg, painting, knitting)  or meditation.  It’s the time when your mind just wanders freely, and when time just seems to fly by.

Alpha-experience represents a relatively stress-free and euphoric state of being. For eating disorder sufferers the alpha state helps to balance their autonomic nervous system and correct impulse control problems.

Now here’s another important piece of the puzzle—besides containing our feelings and emotions, the alpha (sub-conscious) state also contains our “self-beliefs”. Our self-beliefs are the sub-conscious view you have of yourself (the real you), they drive our behaviour at a sub-conscious level. They are similar to the programs you have on your computer that makes it run.

So if, for example you have a self-belief that says “I am bulimic or I am a binge eater or anorexic”, the behaviour that results is that you perform compulsive eating, binge or starve yourself actions. This becomes the real you even if you consciously don’t want to become that person.

Where do self-beliefs come from? Mostly they develop in us at a very young age up to when we are teenagers. These self beliefs go through many developmental stages throughout our lives. It’s interesting to note that, unlike adults, children spend the majority of their waking time in the alpha region and this is why they are so resilient.

Most of our adult behaviours are based on “programming” we picked up before the age of 7. Many eating disorder sufferers picked up their programming when they where youngsters to teenagers.

When it comes to getting results, your self-belief (programming) will always win out over your conscious desire. So it does not matter if you get up every morning swearing that you will eat today, or you will not binge, but by the end of the day you have not done what you said you will do. This is because you are in the beta state and this can not affect the subconscious mind, so you are doomed from the start.

That’s why it seems impossible for many people to stop their eating disorders. But the problem is that they try to fight it with their logical conscious mind, being in a beta state, not an alpha state.

What happens if you target an eating disorder from the alpha state?

Well, you will get a completely different result. Being in alpha state you will target the emotional core of the eating disorders self-beliefs. When sufferers start to change their self-beliefs then the magic occurs:  then they can be cured from their eating problems.

Specific meditation which target people’s self-beliefs can create a real magic in the sufferers life. For eating disorder sufferers who put themselves in an alpha state while meditating regularly, means they can stop their disorder for good.

If the sufferer is only ever in a beta state this probably means they will have their disorder for the rest of their life, with no escape.

It has been proven that meditation brings enormous relieve for the eating disorder sufferer who starts to add meditation into their treatment methods.

But a word of warning, not any old meditation method will do, it has to be a system that is purposely made for anorexia or bulimia and eating disorders. It is totally useless listening to a meditation CD that is just generic, as the subconscious mind will simply dismiss it as irrelevant.

Also lookout for CDs that say they are for Anorexia or Bulimia, but are exactly the same with only the words anorexia replaced with bulimia but everything else does not change. Although anorexia and bulimia are similar they are not exactly alike, so you do need slightly different words to affect the subconscious mind.

Dr Irina Webster.

You can read more at meditation CDs for anorexia and bulimia go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

1. Male Eating Disorders
According to general statistic one out of ten patients with eating
disorders is a man. That means that men are 10% of all eating disorders
suffers, but according to the opinions of many experts the number could
even be higher. The problem with men is that they are reluctant to come
and complain about their problems and hide their problems longer than
women do.  

All these make it hard to show an accurate statistic for male-sufferers.

Clinicians agree that diagnosing anorexia and bulimia in men is more
difficult than it is in women despite identical behaviours. Men are also
much more likely to be diagnosed with depression associated with appetite
disturbances.

A large proportion of men suffering from eating disorders are athletes.
There is a tendency among male-athletes to diet or avoid certain foods
in order to achieve a target weight or body image.

Other occupations which are prone to developing eating disorders are horse
racing, modelling, dancing, distance running and driving.

The lack of visibility of eating disorders in men means a number of things.

First, men don’t discuss anorexia-bulimia problems and they don’t share
their information with other men.  Most of them think that the topic is a
female issue.

Secondly, men associate beauty with body mass, muscle bulge and definition,
not weight loss.  For many men admitting that they have an eating disorder
can undermine their masculinity. This makes men keep their secret about
their eating problems to themselves if they have one.

Thirdly, men think that society expects them to be tough and seeking help
for emotional problems (especially something related to food) makes many
males feel uncomfortable, so they don’t do it.

Nevertheless, the statistic shows that:

- About 3% of men diet all the time or at least ten times a year.

- About 10-14% of young men deliberately vomit after meals in order to
control weight and/or relief their stressful feelings.

- Up to 21% of men have history of binge eating (when they binge food to
moderate their emotions).

The latest studies also showed that psychologically male eating disorders
are similar to female eating disorders. They both have similar emotional
grounds and start for similar reasons.

What are the kind of strategies we can use for prevention and early
intervention of male eating disorders?

1.We should recognise that eating disorders do not discriminate on the
basis of gender and men can be affected the same as women.

2.We need to learn about the warning signs of eating disorders in men: 
weight fluctuations, extreme concerns about weight and body image, general
withdrawal from others, extreme fussiness regarding eating certain foods,
mood swings, frequent measurements of their own body and weight, counting
calories and reading food labels, overexercising and the like.

3.We must understand that certain activities and professions (being an athlete,
actor, dancer, jockey etc.) put men at risk of developing eating disorders.

4.We should talk with young men about cultural attitudes to “masculinity”
and how it is portrayed by media.

5.Encourage male’s involvement in traditional “non-masculine” activities
such as shopping, laundry, and cooking.

6. Demonstrate our respect for gay men.

7.Should never emphasise body size or shape as an indication of a man’s
worth or identity as a man.

8.We should confront others who try to tease men who do not meet traditional
cultural expectation for masculinity.

9. As parents and teachers we should listen carefully what young men
are saying about their feelings and emotions and take them seriously.

10. All fathers should understand their important role in the prevention
of eating problems in their sons by not degrading them if they are not
interested in sport or other so called manly events.

To conclude, male eating disorders are an important issue nowadays.
Understanding, talking openly about these problems will help enormously
to fight it. Encourage men to talk and share their experiences will be
the first important step to overcoming it.

You can read about it at eating disorders books go to http://www.eating-disorders-books.com

If you are dealing with an adult who suffers from an eating disorder, then you should adjust your talk to a relevant format. Remember, an adult may use stronger language than a child would use. Do not get angry. It will not do any good, and will probably make things worse. Plus, the sufferer will not want to confide in you.

Remember that your appearance and tone of your voice should make her/him feel that you are coming with an open heart, and you do it only because you love her/him and care very much about the person: that you don’t have any intention of putting them down or embarrassing them in any way.

Be sensitive, diplomatic and intuitive. Regardless of what happens during the conversation, you should finish the exchange letting the person know that you are willing to listen to them anytime they feel more comfortable about talking.

If the person you want to help doesn’t admit they have a problem, then:

1. Understand that you (and the person close to you) are not responsible for their illness BUT you should take responsibility to do what you can to help them to improve and recover. Without this decision to help, it is more difficult for them to improve on their own.

2. Focus on loving and supportive relationships between you and the sufferer. Avoid being on a drama triangle which means avoid being a “Persecutor”, a “Rescuer”, or a “Victim”.

3. Create intimacy between you and the sufferer. When the sufferer feels completely secure with you, she/he will open up and talk about the problem.

The ways to create intimacy between two people are:
• Be Present and Tune In.
• Ask questions in which you can show your caring and lovable attitude toward the person.
• Listen with Empathy and compassion.
• Accept without Judgment.
• Saying softly “Tell me more….” when you are listening it will make her/him feel immensely loved by you and connected to you at a deeper level.
• Reflect Back.
• Respect Soul.
• Be Transparent. Let others see into your heart and inner world.
• Speak Gently.
• Realize that if the person doesn’t want to talk about her/his problems and denies their anorexia-bulimia, it could be the result of her/his emotional state of mind at that time. They could be experiencing emotional cut-off.

4. Emotional cut-off refers to the mechanisms people use to reduce anxiety from any unresolved emotional issues with parents, siblings, and other members from the family. To avoid sensitive issues, some people either move away from their families or rarely go home. Or, if they remain in physical contact with their families, they avoid sensitive issues by diverting the conversation, cutting off the risk of having to face their emotions.

The opposite of an emotional cut-off is an open intimate relationship. It is a very effective way to reduce a family’s over-all anxiety and acts like security priming.

5. Continue on with your education about eating disorders. The more you know about the disease, the easier it becomes to conquer it.

From our personal experience coping with a person suffering from an eating disorder, it is obvious that there isn’t one single definitive guide or course of action for you or the sufferer to follow that will guarantee a solution to their eating problems.

Your attitude and beliefs about how the sufferer should act and your ability to interact as a caregiver can affect the way you respond to your loved one.

Remember, that if one approach for coping with your loved one’s illness does not work, there is always another way. People who develop eating disorders are absolutely normal. However something happens in their lives that make them suffer emotionally and they turn to an eating disorder to compensate for this emotional discomfort.

So you as a caregiver have to be very understanding, caring and most of all none- judgmental if you really want to help.

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