EAT I NG H A BI TS
Making friends with food The experts dish on our complicated relationship with eating and the evolution of eating disorders. BY TRALEE PEARCE
W
OUR PANEL
ITH SO MANY DIETS, cleanses and new nutritional bad guys
lurking around grocery store aisles, it can be easy to start obsessing about our eating habits. But when might that nudge us toward eating disorders (EDs), such as anorexia or bulimia? Here’s what three experts had to say about identifying and treating women who are battling with their food:
How many canadians experience eating disorders? What is the impact?
PHOTOGRAPHY, THINKSTOCK
Dr. Jericho: Among women, rates
of anorexia are about 0.5 percent. Bulimia is around one percent. These numbers represent people who meet the diagnostic criteria but not those who are struggling with eating issues whose symptoms don’t quite fit the same criteria. People with eating disorders are often weak, cold and lacking energy.
OCTOBER 2015 | CANADIANLIVING.COM
EDs impact every organ system in the body and can cause fatal heart attacks. Ugyan: It’s starting young. Eighty-one percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of becoming fat. Almost 50 percent of people with an ED meet the criteria for depression. Fox: Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental health issue. People think of the most extreme case, anorexia, but most who suffer with eating disorders appear to be physically “normal”—you wouldn’t even know.
Dr. Monique Jericho is a psychiatrist and the medical director of the eating disorder program at Alberta Health Services in Calgary.
Shelley Ugyan is a Vancouver eating disorder and emotional eating health coach and the author of Food Freedom. Ugyan has recovered from a long-term eating disorder. Kyla Fox is an eating disorder therapist and founder of The Kyla Fox Recovery Centre in Toronto, the first eating disorder treatment centre of its kind in the city. Fox suffered with, and recovered from, anorexia and an overexercising disorder.
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