Plus Sized Images Can Change Body Size Preferences

     Eating disorder professionals and advocates have long discussed the effect of the 'thin-ideal' on body-image and self-esteem.  Westerners see an average of 2,000 images in advertising alone, on a daily basis, and images of thin bodies far outweigh the number of normal and plus-size bodies seen in the media.  There have been multiple studies on how this may play into the creation of eating disorders and how it affects the self-image of people who don't have eating disorders.
Interestingly, there is new research that society's preference for small bodies could be changed by viewing more images of plus-size models. 
     A study done recently at Durham University in the United Kingdom, showed women images of both slim bodies and plus-sized bodies. When shown the photographs of the plus-sized models in 'aspirational' settings (such as a beauty product or fashion advertisement), the preferences of the women being surveyed changed.
     Although it is unknown if viewing larger people would change preferences long-term, it is an important finding and one that encourages fashion designers and magazines to continue to increase the number of plus and normal sized women who are featured on their pages and in their shows.
What do you think of this study's results?  Do you think that viewing more normal and/or plus-sized women would change your preferences?

If you or someone you love has body image issues, please call Ramey Nutrition at (206) 909-8022, or visit us at www.rameynutrition.com

A new breed of eating disorder that couples starvation diets with excessive alcohol consumption is sweeping through college campuses, affecting scores of young women, experts say. To avoid gaining weight, the coeds devote their calories to the booze.

This condition is blurring the line between eating disorder and substance abuse, making it particularly dangerous, and many young women find themselves developing these habits once they head off to college.

Jamie Selfrige, an occupation therapy student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, found herself and her friends falling into a pattern of skipping meals followed by heavy drinking while she was an undergraduate student.

“We wouldn’t eat dinner,” Selfrige said, now a graduate student for whom the problem faded away by senior year. “We would save up all of our calories for drinking.”

Part of the problem is how heavily girls influence their other friends. What starts out as a problem for just a couple of girls can quickly spread to an entire peer group.

“If they’re gonna skip a meal, then I’m gonna skip a meal because I don’t want to be the fatty," Selfrige said.

Niquie Dworkin, coordinator of clinical training at Lakeview Center for Psychotherapy, has worked for more than 20 years with people who suffer from eating disorders as well as those who struggle with substance abuse.

“I think most people probably fall into a category of disordered eating,” Dworkin said. “They might not have an eating disorder proper, but they might exhibit some of the symptoms.”

These negative feelings towards foods and the knowledge that alcohol contains a lot of calories makes the problem even worse for women trying to limit their calorie intake.

Allison Chaplin, a nursing student at DePaul University, began to notice one of her friends developing this habit while in college and it seems to be getting worse.

“She literally will not eat during the day and then she’ll drink,” Chaplin said.

The pressure to be skinny is evident in every magazine, movie and television show and girls are well aware of that pressure early on.

“Thin is what’s beautiful,” Selfrige said.

As girls get older and head off to school, the need to stay thin is complicated by the pressure to fit in as a college student by partying and drinking.

“It’s just part of the college lifestyle,” Selfrige said.

Chaplin chocks it up to “a fear of missing out.”

While most young people see college as a gateway to independence, it also creates an environment that contributes to eating disorders and substance abuse since starting college is such a huge lifestyle change.

College is “the first time that most of these people have been away from their parents, so whatever sort of ways their parents were helping them stay on track or be moderate, they don’t have that anymore,” Dworkin said.

Additionally, their age puts them at a particularly high risk to develop problems with alcohol and eating, though eating disorders can occur with or without substance abuse.

“Young people, when they’re 18, 19, 20, you know, their brains are still developing,” Dworkin explained. “They don’t have as much capacity to weigh it and think things through, so they’re more vulnerable.”

There may be another, newer explanation, though, and it comes from something most young people use every day. Pamela Keel, professor of psychology at Florida State University, conducted a study that identified a link between Facebook use and the risk of developing an eating disorder.

Keel has spent her career teaching and researching factors that contribute to eating disorders and negative body image. Two of her students approached her about doing a study when they realized that the popular social media sight might be influencing young women’s attitudes about their bodies.

“More time on Facebook is associated with disordered eating,” Keel said. Facebook reinforced a poor self-image as young women looked at and compared themselves to the glamorous shots of others.

The study had two parts. The first part was a survey where women reported the how frequently they used Facebook and their attitudes towards eating, looking for some sort of link. The second part questioned whether Facebook use caused these attitudes or just correlated with them. Keel set up an experiment where women were called in to spend either 20 minutes on Facebook or 20 minutes reading a Wikipedia article. The women who spent time of Facebook found it contributed to increased anxiety over weight and body image compared to those who read the Wikipedia article.

Keel explained that Facebook is unique compared to other websites because it brings together peer pressure and media in the same place.

Facebook “basically combines these two known risk factors,” Keel said. The study was published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Restricting calories wreaks havoc on the body, but just how harmful is it and what is affected?

Severely restricted diets and alcohol abuse impair the brain in similar ways, according to Dr. David Hamilton, a psychiatrist specializing in neuroscience and the associate medical director of Yellowbrick, an addiction treatment facility in Evanston. His training in neurology give him an understanding of how different substances impact brain function.

He explains that starvation impairs certain parts of the brain.

“The brain has developed mechanisms for dealing with that and it starts selectively shutting down parts that aren’t as necessary as other parts,” Hamilton said. “And those parts are things like reason, decision-making, consciousness.”

The way alcohol interacts with the brain is strikingly similar, gradually impairing function. Combining food restriction with drinking is even worse because it magnifies the effects on the brain, which can be dangerous and even deadly for young women.

“They’re more vulnerable to traumatic assault, accidents, drinking more than they intended to, using other substances they might not have decided to if this issue, this decision making part of the brain, was working more properly,” Hamilton said.

Unfortunately, what starts out as a minor problem for some women turns into a huge one later down the road. This is what Chaplin sees happening to her friend.

“It’s kind of taking over her life now,” she said.

While some young women spiral out of control, others find they are able to correct the problem as they grow older and leave the college lifestyle behind.

“It slowly started to taper off senior year,” Selfrige says.

Selfrige has not had any problems since she graduated from college, suggesting that the condition may be a phase that other college women will be able to outgrow.

 

If you or a loved one struggles with an eating disorder or disordered eating, please call Ramey Nutrition at (206) 909-8022 or visit us at www.rameynutrition.com

Serious Concerns over Eating Disorders among Australian Men by Markus Vogl

Thousands of Aussie men are suffering from eating disorders. Most of the times, men do not get noticed as they do not take treatment fearing the stigma attached with the condition.

Christine Morgan, CEO of the Butterfly Foundation, an organization for people with body image issues, said 40% of people having binge eating disorder and 20% of people having anorexia nervosa are men. As per the foundation, over 333,000 Australian men currently have a clinical eating disorder.

There is a notion that eating disorders can only happen among teenage girls, but it is not the truth, said Morgan. If people would get to know about the number of boys getting hospitalized due to an eating disorder then they will get shocked, affirmed Morgan.

Some of the biggest names of the entertainment industry have battled with eating disorders. Comedian Russell Brand developed bulimia as a teen. Former Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns suffered with anorexia at the time when he was at the peak of his career.

Eating disorder covers a number of illnesses including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and atypical presentation. Main problem among boys is they do not seek treatment as often as women do.

"It's perceived as a sign of weakness. They believe it's simply a matter of willpower - but an eating disorder is not cured by willpower. It's a very serious psychological disorder", stated Morgan.

Male eating disorders can go unnoticed. Men can start with disordered exercise behaviours that lead to disordered eating behaviours.

WHEN we discuss eating disorders, the conversation usually revolves around teenage girls and young women.
But thousands of Aussie men are suffering from eating disorders and failing to seek treatment for fear of the stigma still attached to the illness.
A staggering 40 per cent of people with a binge eating disorder and 20 per cent of those with anorexia nervosa are men, says Christine Morgan, who is the CEO of the Butterfly Foundation, an organisation for people with body image issues.
The Foundation estimates more than 333,000 Australian men currently have a clinical eating disorder.
“There’s this myth that eating disorders are something that only affects teenage girls, and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Ms Morgan told news.com.au.
“The number of boys that are being hospitalised (because of an eating disorder) is frightening stuff.”

Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns has been very open about his struggle with anorexia. Source: News Limited

Some of the entertainment industry’s biggest male stars have battled with eating disorders. Elton John says he developed a “camaraderie” with Princess Diana over their shared illness, bulimia. Comedian Russell Brand also developed bulimia as a teen, which returned when he was in rehab for a drug and alcohol addiction.Former Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns suffered from anorexia at the height of his career, even penning Ana’s Song (Open Fire), about his battle.
He told Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope program: “I could somehow convince myself that apples contained razorblades and wouldn’t go to restaurants because I thought every chef in the world wanted to poison me.”

Tony Kay, 29, has battled anorexia nervosa since he was a teenager. Source: Supplied

Eating disorders cover a broad spectrum of illnesses — anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and atypical presentation (where a sufferer has clusters of symptoms from all three of these illnesses) are all types of eating disorders.
Exacerbating the problem is that men are far less likely than women to seek treatment.
“Guys are more likely to say, ‘I don’t really have a problem, I don’t really need help’,” said Ms Morgan.
“It’s perceived as a sign of weakness. They believe it’s simply a matter of willpower — but an eating disorder is not cured by willpower. It’s a very serious psychological disorder where the battle ground is in the brain.”
Tony Kay knows this battle all too well. The 29-year-old Sydney man has struggled with anorexia since he was a teenager.
“When I was 13, I was very conscious of my body and was always comparing and contrasting myself to other boys,” Mr Kay told news.com.au.

Tony has been hospitalised four times. Source: Supplied

“When I finished high school, I had a lot of spare time on my hands and I put on a lot of weight quickly because I was sitting at home doing nothing. I weighed 120kg.
“I had a lot of body dissatisfaction and I decided to lose a bit of weight to feel better about myself.
“But it went from being this hobby or a goal to be healthier, to several months on having noticeable signs of an eating disorder.
“I was restricting food and exercising compulsively. I was going to the bathroom often to flush out any waste. Obviously I lost weight and that positive reinforcement exacerbated it.”
Mr Kay says he’s hit rock bottom “several times” and dropped to an extremely low weight (I’m 6”3. I was a noticeable anorexic”). He has been hospitalised four times.
“I could no longer really function,” he said.
“I couldn’t feel anything. I wasn’t happy, I was apathetic, I was tired. I didn’t have any energy and I was very angry. The only thing that made me feel any better was exercising and restricting food, because it gave me a sense of security.”
And while his condition has improved, Mr Kay says you never fully ‘recover’ from an eating disorder.

Tony (right) and friends. Source: Supplied

“It’s a day by day thing,” he said. “One day I will challenge those thoughts and unrealistic expectations and eat freely without consideration.
“Other days, I’m a slave to those thoughts. It becomes so ingrained in you it’s hard to stop.”
Male eating disorders can easily go unnoticed. Going to the gym daily or watching what you eat can be misinterpreted as simply going on a health kick.
Ms Morgan says: “They will often start to engage in disordered exercise behaviours which then leads to disorder eating behaviours, with the idea of getting that buff, ripped look, which society says is a healthy look, that it’s a healthy practice.
“How few guys naturally have that ideal body look? To try and get that look they have to do things which are very harmful to our bodies.”
Mr Kay says eating disorders are more rife in the male community than people realise.
“Images of the ideal male are constantly shoved down your throat,” he said. “They’re unrealistic expectations. Most people can never achieve that.”

Diabulimia: A Growing Issue Ramey Nutrition is Attacking

SHE was a typical headstrong teenager who dreamed of a life in the limelight. Despite a diabetes diagnosis at seven years old, Sarah Caltieri refused to let anything derail her singing ambitions – not even a life-threatening illness.

But as a high school student she had no idea the result of youthful stubbornness would ultimately leave her blind.

Fixated on her goal of “making it” in showbiz, the talented vocalist began skipping insulin shots in a bid to lose weight.

“Eventually there were periods of time where I didn’t inject insulin at all and could lose up to half a stone a day,” said Sarah, now 34. Just as most of her friends were graduating university, the consequences of Sarah’s teenage rebellion came back to haunt her, with tests revealing damage to her kidneys and eyes.

Before surgery could be scheduled she lost her sight aged 22 – both eyes in less than a week.

A decade on, Sarah has beaten all the odds to make good on her childhood dreams and hopes her new album launch will raise awareness of her condition. She is collaborating with producer Duncan Cameron and hopes to complete her debut record in the comings months before a setting off on whirlwind tour across Scotland and the UK.

But Sarah, who lives in Leith, will never shirk her determination to highlight the dangers of the little-knowndiabetic eating disorder that changed her life but remains unnamed.

At seven, Sarah fell into a diabetic coma that nearly killed her. Doctors told her parents – who kept vigil at her bedside – that her life hanged in the 
balance.

After two never-ending days, she came to. Sarah was packed off home with a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis, diet sheets, needles and strict instructions not to eat sugary foods.

With her body unable to create insulin – needed for the body to absorb enough glucose from the blood to create energy – the youngster would have to rely on injections for the rest of her life. Her childhood would now be regimented by a host of rules of set meal times, weighing food portions and avoiding sweets.

“It was a struggle to get it under control when I first came out of hospital,” she said.

“As a child I felt quite isolated when I was the only one who wasn’t allowed birthday cake or sweets at parties.”

She kept on top of her medication but the pressures of high school meant the rebellious teenager was lurking just around the corner. Like many girls her age, Sarah began flirting with alcohol and cigarettes which would send her blood glucose levels soaring.

But as performing became more of a career aspiration, she also became more body-conscious. She started fixating on what she was eating and her size, and went from a “healthy weight” to seriously ill.

“I became obsessed with body image and just became a teenager. With my hormones all over the place, and having to control diabetes and teenage life, unfortunately I started to develop symptoms of anorexia,” she said.

“I started dieting and losing weight. I lost a stone healthily but didn’t stop and was obsessively exercising, then the binges started. Eventually I figured out how to manipulate my insulin and realised that if I stopped taking it, food would go straight through me.”

Aged 17, she reduced her prescribed five injections a day to just one every few days.

Depleted insulin levels meant what little she did eat couldn’t properly be broken down, leading to dangerously steep weight loss.

“I was completely oblivious to the damage I was doing to my body. My blood sugars were off the scale. I was a walking zombie, I could barely function.

“I was good at hiding it from my family, I just pretended my blood sugar was too high. Really what I was doing was killing myself.

“With an eating disorder, all you’re interested in is losing weight, the consequences don’t even register. It’s a mental illness but no-one recognised it.”

Sarah’s education suffered and her life-long dreams of making it to drama school fell by the wayside as she struggled to get by each day.

After months of declining health, she visited a clinic before her GP eventually referred her to psychologist to “unravel the mess”. She re-learned old habits. She learned how to be diabetic again.

A few years later, well down the road to recovery, she received bombshell news that her kidneys and eyes had been damaged. Sarah was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy in both eyes – extra blood vessels that grow because of poor blood flow in the existing ones.

Before she could undergo surgery, her left eye haemorrhaged. Doctors hoped to save the other but within four days the right eye followed and Sarah lost her vision. “I lost it all in just under a week,” she said. “It was absolutely horrendous. I put myself through all of that and now I’ve gone blind. I just thought I don’t know if I can live.

“I lost my job, my driving licence, everything I’d ever known, I had to start from scratch again. It was like learning walk again. I had to learn how to go out using a cane, be independent. The main thing I had to re-learn was confidence. It’s scary being out in the big wide world with no vision.”

About a year later, while she was still undergoing operations, she was told about a part in a play and decided to audition in her home town of Leeds. She landed the lead role and has “never looked back”, moving to the Capital five years ago after falling in love with the city.

Sarah made her professional début in the stage musical The Threepenny Opera and has since appeared in numerous plays – including some on the Fringe – but this will be her first studio album. “It has always been a dream of mine,” she said of the album. “A lot of the songs on there, I wrote a few years ago, They are quite autobiographical and tell my story.”

She wants to use her plight as a way of highlighting the condition and does a lot of work for Scottish charity Diabetics With Eating Disorders.

Sarah relentlessly campaigns for her condition to be properly recognised, with the backing of blind MSP Dennis Robertson.

“This eating disorder has not been given a proper diagnosis or name by the medical profession but sadly it is a worldwide thing,” she said. “Without this, it’s really difficult to try and raise awareness of it and get people to listen. We need funding from the government to train people to know how to deal with it and for special clinics to be opened.

“It’s as huge as anorexia or bulimia but because it’s not been given an official name, people don’t hear about it.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, my blindness was down to the diabetic eating disorder. I feel like I’m very lucky to come through what I have done. I’m a very happy person now and I feel like I need to help other people in any way I can. There is light at the end of the tunnel, it’s a lot of hard work but you can get through it.”

If you or someone you love struggles with an eating disorder and diabetes please call Ramey Nutrition at 206-909-8022 or visit us at www.rameynutrition.com 

Photoshop Cops, Enablers, or Superheroes?

Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen(R., Fla.) and Lois Capps (D., Calif.) have, at the urging of reformed adman SethMatlins (D., formerly of Creative Artists Agency, Rock the Vote, etc.), offered up avery silly bill to empower the federal government to censor advertising on the theory that the overuse of photo-editing software causes anorexia and other eating disorders. The world being full of stupid people, there is an emotionally incontinent for-the-children petition demanding that the Federal Trade Commission implement this censorship, on top of Mr. Matlins’s earlier demand that advertising in which images have been altered — which is to say, advertising — be labeled to alert beef-witted Americans to the fact of that alteration.

Anorexia nervosa is a terrible condition that is not caused by Cosmopolitan magazine. The most significant risk factor for anorexia is genetic composition, not photo composition. While the research on the matter is far from settled, anorexia appears to be associated with a malfunction involving the EPHX2 gene, which, among other things, affects the metabolism of cholesterol and is associated with familial hypercholesterolemia. This points to a possible explanation of the counterintuitive fact that anorexics tend to have high cholesterol despite their restricted diets. Professor Cynthia M. Bulik of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill medical school (the occupant of the nation’s only endowed chair dedicated to the study of eating disorders) examined data from the Swedish Twin Registry (a very large sample population — nearly 32,000 individuals) and found that incidences of anorexia were much more strongly correlated in identical twins than in fraternal twins, suggesting a genetic component. Her analysis of the data suggests that genetic factors account for the majority of anorexia risk. “Fifty-six percent heritability,” she wrote, “that’s a fairly large contribution of genes.” Her research indicated that the development of anorexia later in life was strongly associated with early-manifesting neuroticism.

Research on the influence of environmental and cultural factors, including media exposure, is mixed, and much of it is ideologically shaped and interpreted. It is distorted in two common ways: The first is by lumping serious eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia in with less serious episodes of disordered eating, or with simple dissatisfaction with the appearance of one’s body, and treating the aggregate as a unified pathology — rather like treating chronic alcoholism and short-term collegiate binge drinking as if they were the same phenomenon. The second distortion comes from inadequately dealing with — or flatly refusing to account for — the fact that people who are suffering from a disordered obsession with body image seek out media that affirm their ideals or that provide information about diet and weight-loss strategies. Reading diet articles does not make you anorexic, but being anorexic attracts you to diet articles. Some researchers believe this to be a circular phenomenon — the media-consumption body contributing to and resulting from the disorder — and perhaps it is, but the inconsistency of findings, the elusiveness of the mechanism of causality, and the prominence of relatively straightforward biological factors together suggest that the media-oriented explanation of anorexia is yet another in a long line of feminism-derived ideological assaults on reality, which have done so much harm to so many fields of social research.

I have no doubt that Mr. Matlins and his congressional patrons are acting with the very best of intentions, or at least believe themselves to be, but the attack on media beauty standards is largely a lamentably exhibitionist act of moral theater. Setting aside the obvious First Amendment issues, it might have occurred to Mr. Matlins, and to Representatives Ros-Lehtinen and Capps, that in an age of wall-to-wall pornography — including the distasteful subgenre of anorexic-centered pornography — asking a panel of kommissars down at the FTC to step on Lululemon ads in the service of a wobbly theory about the causes of eating disorders is probably going to have negligible effect. There is more to culture than advertisements, and unless we are ready to start banning everything from Angelina Jolie’s cheekbone extensions in Maleficentto breast augmentation, we will continue to confront images of human beings that are altered in the direction of some unknown aesthetic ideal.

That ideal, of course, is the real target here. Among the bouquet of crackpot ideas that have been bundled together under the heading “feminism” is the belief that beauty standards are a sort of conspiracy against women, used to keep them from making economic and political progress. Like the media-oriented analysis of eating disorders, this ignores a great deal of scientific research arguing that beauty standards, in their role as proxies for reproductive value, are more biologically evolved than “socially constructed,” as the insipid standard phrase has it. The world is of course a gorgeous mosaic of cultures, and 90-year-olds are hot in none of them. These things do not happen by accident. If we are in fact concerned about anorexia rather than about feminist metaphysics, then we’d probably do better to spend our time researching the genetics of cholesterol metabolism than measuring thigh gaps in Gaultier advertisements.

It is difficult to know what to make of a culture in which the federal government subsidizes sex-change operations while forbidding the alteration of photographs, but it is remarkable that the political tendency that insists on the depiction of “real women” in fashion advertising also, in other domains, defines “real women” to include people with functional penises and testicles used for sexual intercourse resulting in the occasional pregnancy. “Humankind,” as T. S. Eliot observed, “cannot bear very much reality.”

— Kevin D. Williamson is National Review’s roving correspondent and the author ofThe End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome.

Link Seen Between Mental Disorders, Diabetes in New Study

Clinical and Research News June 05, 2014  DOI: 10.1176/appi.pn.2014.6a1 Link Seen Between Mental Disorders, Diabetes in New Study Joan Arehart-Treichel Psychiatric News Volume 49 Number 11 page 1    Findings about a link between diabetes and both eating disorders and intermittent explosive disorder reinforce the importance of integrating psychiatric and general medical care. Abstract Teaser In a large international study, researchers found an association among binge-eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, depression, and intermittent explosive disorder and the later occurrence of type-2 diabetes. The study was headed by Peter de Jonge, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, who along with colleagues conducted face-to-face household surveys of some 52,000 community-dwelling adults in 19 countries. Most of the surveys were based on nationally representative household samples, except for those from Colombia, Mexico, and China, which were based on representative household samples in urban areas. The results are published in the April Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. The World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview was used to retrospectively evaluate the lifetime prevalence and age at onset of 16 DSM-IV psychiatric disorders, including several anxiety disorders, mood disorders, impulse control disorders, and substance use disorders. Anorexia nervosa was excluded because there was too low a prevalence of it in the study population to produce reliable analyses. Subjects were also asked whether their physicians had diagnosed them for type-2 diabetes, and if so, when the diagnosis occurred. The researchers then looked to see whether they could find any significant links between the mental disorders of interest and subjects’ subsequent diagnosis of type-2 diabetes, while taking comorbidity of the various mental disorders into account. Their data did point to links between diabetes and four mental disorders—binge-eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, major depressive disorder, and intermittent explosive disorder. The odds ratio for developing diabetes was especially high for individuals with binge-eating disorder or bulimia—3 to 1 in the case of the former and 2 to 1 in the case of the latter. “These findings support the focus on depression as having a role in diabetes onset, but suggest that this focus may be extended towards impulse-control disorders,” the researchers said. They suggested that the association between binge eating and diabetes and between bulimia and diabetes “point to the importance of glucose dysregulation. . .which may eventually result in later diabetes.” As for the link they found between intermittent explosive disorder and later development of diabetes, it’s possible that it might be explained by “low levels of HDL cholesterol and decreased serotonin functioning, both of which have been associated with aggression and diabetes.” The findings also have clinical implications, the researchers pointed out. For example, if depression is indeed a risk factor for type-2 diabetes, and if it is successfully treated, could such treatment decrease the chances of people developing type-2 diabetes? “This is theoretically plausible, since the typical age of onset of depression is considerably lower than the typical age of diabetes onset,” they noted. Also, the lifetime rate of major depressive disorder in individuals with eating disorders has been found to be as high as 50 percent to 75 percent, they said. It thus “remains possible for a person to develop an eating disorder, become depressed later on, and in the end develop diabetes. Targeting the eating disorder in this case will theoretically be a far more promising approach [to preventing diabetes] than focusing solely on depression.” “Perhaps further studies could evaluate the possibility that impulse-control disorders, including eating disorders and intermittent-explosive disorder, may serve as risk factors for depression and diabetes, or that these disorders are expressions of an underlying pathology that might lead to diabetes.” “Although affective disorders are well known to be associated with diabetes, this international epidemiological study finds an association between glucose dysregulation and a variety of other psychiatric disorders as well,” psychiatrist Thomas Wise, M.D., medical director of Inova Health Systems in Falls Church, Va., and a psychosomatic medicine expert, said in an interview with Psychiatric News. The research also “reinforces the urgent need to develop practical models of psychiatric integration into primary and specialty care settings to work as part of a team utilizing disease and behavioral approaches for such serious comorbid disorders.” The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, multiple international organizations, and several pharmaceutical companies. ■

How Families Deal with an Eating Disorder

I’ve seen hundreds of people get “dropped off” at treatment and watched their loved ones walk away, almost in worse shape than the new admit. I have often wondered who that moment is harder for. For the new admit, its realizing you’re in treatment, adjusting to new schedules, faces, etc. For the loved one, you are walking away, letting go and hoping for the best. When does that hope for the best turn into relief that for the next 30 days (god willing with insurance), you can regain some level of autonomy and breathe just a little deeper?

If you are reading this and thinking how selfish I must be for wanting to breathe a little deeper, I hope you never find yourself in a situation where you would understand where I am coming from. With that being said. It made me think about what this child’s parents would feel. They did everything “right,” they said the right things, monitored media influence, and yet their 9-year-old daughter ended up malnourished and 50 lbs.

The parents said, “We soon learned that nothing about an eating disorder was rational.” I think this is the hardest part for loved ones. The disease gets so good at mimicking what their new host used to be like and tricking on lookers into seeing “glimpses of the old you” truly invoking a false sense of hope. The more of these episodes there are is a good indicator that the person is being pulled further towards their disease. It’s usually not that long after the “exorcist” version comes to light, and you are met with a whole new slue of feelings, and horror.

I usually meet people in the real pits of their disease, so when I start learning who they actually are it’s incredible to see the transformation. I had a mother say something that has never really left me. “I know my daughter is a monster right now, but just know she is my monster and I love her.”

Before then I would have never thought to have the words “monster” and “love” in the same sentence. As I helped the daughter unpack I witnessed first hand the “monster” her mother had just warned me about. Up until this point I thought monster was a bit harsh, but after experiencing it the word monster really hit the nail on the head. As I got to know the “monster” the more I saw the young lady, I knew the monster and what it was capable of. I lived the monster. I at one point was the monster.

It was a real learning opportunity for me because it changed my whole perspective. Maybe because I was introduced to both her disease and the person she was outside of it at the same time. I don’t know why but those words have always stayed with me, and reminds me that no matter how “ugly” someone’s disease is they are someone’s “monster” and are loved.

How My Eating Disorder Makes a Muffin into a Unscalable Mountain by Sandra Charron

Disordered eating is not a lifestyle choice. It's not because a person is vain or trying to lose weight for a wedding. It might start off like that, but once it has sunk its teeth into your psyche, disordered eating tells you when and what to eat...or not eat. And during the process of deciding whether you will eat, disordered eating breaks you down until all of your failures are highlighted in neon lights in your brain. Nobody wants to feel like this. Nobody chooses this.

Having battled disordered eating for 30 years, those who can pop a muffin top into their mouths and chew into it with enjoyment or even disinterest -- without even so much as a second of hesitation during the process of placing muffin to lips -- are viewed as interesting and brave beings to be observed and admired by those of us who find the very act of touching the moist snack a deed which causes anxiety, distress, anguish, and even fear. These are emotions which can only be described as comparable to those associated with undergoing a painful procedure at the dentist.

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? It shouldn't even be worth writing about. But to someone with Anorexia Nervosa or bulimia, or an Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS), to hold a muffin in our hand; to stare at it with longing; to want to peel off that first bite and place it into our mouth, requires an extensive mental conversation which will continue long after we've actually swallowed the muffin, abstained from it, or purged it. The thought process often sounds like this:

"I'm going to eat this muffin. I am. I really am. But it'll be OK because I'll go for an hour run afterwards. I need to step up my cardio anyway. I couldn't believe how big my thighs were when I saw my reflection in the glass doors when I came to work this morning.

I weighed x lbs before I got dressed today. I've gained x lbs since December. If I can just get back down to x lbs., I'm sure I won't feel so sad all the time. I'm so tired of feeling like this. I just want to die.

I'm such a loser. Why did I even pick up this muffin? I should have left it in the box for the other girls. I'm so stupid. I can't believe I'm considering putting this in my mouth. I'm worthless. I can't even resist a muffin, it's no wonder I suck at everything.

Okay. If I do eat this, I'll take some laxatives. I have a box in my purse. That should work.

Oh God. But what if it doesn't? What if I get on the scale tomorrow and I haven't lost any weight? Or I've gained some? I suck. I need to put this muffin down. And just not eat anything for the rest of the day. I'll keep drinking my diet drink, that'll fill me up. Maybe I won't eat tomorrow either. That'll make me feel better, maybe I'll even feel happy if I go for two days without eating.

I'm so useless. Nobody likes me anyway so who cares if I even eat this muffin? I can't do anything right. My mom was right: all I ever do is make mistakes.

But look at Shelley eating her muffin. It looks so good. But I couldn't do like she's doing; I couldn't just dip it into my coffee like that. How can she let it touch her lips? Maybe I can nibble at it, chew it for a few seconds, then spit it out?

Oh fuck it. I'm eating it. Actually, I'll eat all of them; there are only three left. I'll eat the chocolate muffin first so that it will be my marker when I throw all this shit up after.

God, I'm such a loser."

Realistic self-portraits reveal secret binge eating

The art of bingeing: The images are all set in private places - including the bathroom - as in the image above. Photo / Lee Price

By Naomi Greenaway

An American artist has exposed her most private moments in a series of self-portraits that portray her eating behind closed doors.

The thought-provoking images, painted with almost photographic realism, depict the artist in different secret bingeing scenarios.

In one she's surrounded by cupcakes on the sofa, another shows her lying on a bed covered in fast food wrappers and in others she's eating in the bath and even in the loo.

Lee Price from Santa Fe in New Mexico, USA, who painted these compelling pieces "grappled with eating disorders" growing up and wanted to explore the complex relationship some women have with food through her art.

"When I'm having difficulties in my life food is still how I deal with things," admits the artist, now 47. "It's not the severity that it was, but I might grab a pint of Haagen Dazs without thinking."

"The paintings are very personal," Lee tells MailOnline. "They explore compulsive behavior. I use food as the focus, but any number of other things could stand in for food."

"They're about the multifarious ways we check out. We use food to seek solace, but then our search for comfort turns into a way of not being present in the moment," she explains.

The artist believes that women's relationship with food is central to the relationship we have to the world.

"By portraying women involved in as intimate an act as eating, I am exploring a broader context of women's situation," she explains.

"My paintings, I hope, point the viewer toward asking what we are truly hungry for, and what might be a healthier way of expressing that hunger, and seeking out its satiation," she says.

Although the images are about secrecy and compulsion, the artist doesn't associate her paintings with shame. "In fact, there's a kind of defiance in the gaze in many of the paintings," she says.

"I get various interpretations," says the artist. "Many people miss the connection to emotional eating my paintings represent.

"Then I get tonnes of emails from people - men and women both - who respond on a very personal level to the content of my work. Both responses resonate for me."

"What's important to me is not so much how people take them in, but simply that they take them in, each in their own way," she says.

What also stands out in the images are the unusual settings - the bathroom, toilet and bedroom aren't your typical eating spots.

"I wanted to use a private place, a peaceful place of solitude, and set against it this frenetic activity of compulsive behavior in which the subjects are engaged," explains Lee.

"The irony then becomes that in the midst of the chaos of their behavior there is peace. The women just can't see that," adds the artist.

The mesmerising images are currently being exhibited at Evoke Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

- DailyMail

‘That’s How Powerful the Disease Is’ After Surviving Two Hospitalizations for Anorexia, New Haven Graduate Headed to University College London to Study Male Eating Disorders By Karen Cernich

The first time Ryan Branson was starving himself, he didn’t recognize that he had developed an eating disorder, anorexia nervosa.

He was 15 years old, a student at New Haven High School Class of 2008, and he was limiting his food, not because he thought he was fat, but so he wouldn’t gain weight.

“I always got a lot of attention — not good attention, negative attention,” said Branson, who was born with spastic cerebral palsy.

For him the condition has only affected his body, not his mind.

“My muscles get tight, so I have to stretch them,” he said, noting he uses a walker and sometimes a mobility scooter to get around, mainly at school.

Feeling like people were always looking at him, though, took a toll on his psyche, especially as a teenager.

“I stood out because I was different, using a walker, so I knew people were always looking at me,” said Branson. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t fat because that would just be another thing they could pick on me for.”

In the beginning Branson said he was really self-conscious about his body, how he looked. Then he began exercising compulsively and restricting his food intake.

After two years, Branson’s weight dropped into the 80-pound range and his parents, Deann and Walter “Junior” Branson, Berger, took him to a doctor who recognized that he was suffering from anorexia.

“The doctor knew right away that’s what I had, but I thought I could beat it on my own and start eating again,” said Branson.

“She gave me a week to start eating, said, ‘We’ll see if you’re better or have more weight.’ I tried, it didn’t happen. It’s a whole mental thing. You want to do this, but you can’t. Your mind is very powerful.”

The anorexia was doing a great deal of damage to Branson’s body. He was having chest pains and his blood pressure and heart rate were dangerously low.

Branson went to a treatment facility in Kansas City one of the few places his parents could find that would accept male eating disorder patients. The facility has since closed.

After leaving treatment, Branson did well for about five years. He graduated high school and enrolled at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where last month he graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in nutrition and fitness.

But along the way he relapsed, and this time, it was even more severe.

It was about two years ago, said Branson, noting the stress of college life and wanting to fit in played a role. A bigger contributor was trying to help a friend who was struggling with an eating disorder too.

“But that backfired, and I relapsed as well,” he said.

Five years earlier, Branson’s anorexia included having a distorted body image, where he saw himself as fat even though he was dangerously thin. This time around, Branson said he recognized how thin he was. The problem was that he liked the way he looked.

“I could see my bones when I looked in the mirror, and that was kind of pleasing to me,” he said.

“I knew it was bad, I shouldn’t be doing this, but that’s how powerful the disease is.”

Still, Branson recognized that he was in trouble and sought help for himself, but not before his weight had dropped to around 79 pounds.

“They didn’t know if I was going to make it the first few hours,” said Branson, who had been admitted to the hospital and put on a feeding tube to bring his weight back up.

It took awhile to get there safely, he said. A healthy weight for him, at 5 feet, 5 inches tall, is about 120 pounds.

After one week on the feeding tube alone, Branson slowly added eating small portions of food. After another week, the feeding tube was removed and he went to eating only normal food.

He returned to the same Kansas City treatment facility as before. He had left school in February and didn’t return until June.

Branson said his treatment included both group and individual counseling where patients talked about positive body image and cognitive behavioral therapy. There also were nutrition lessons to learn about healthy eating.

There were only three men total in his group sessions, said Branson.

Not Just a Female Disease

This fall Branson will begin a graduate program studying male eating disorders at University College London in England.

It’s a yearlong program where he will be learning the latest in treatment approaches, work clinically with people who have eating disorders and doing research. He’ll also attend seminars to hear people speak about eating disorders and visit hospitals to observe people recovering from eating disorders.

He hopes to develop new, more effective treatment for men suffering from eating disorders.

When he comes home, Branson plans to work with NEDA, National Eating Disorder Association, to establish an organization just for men who are struggling with eating disorders so they can support each other.

There is such an organization for men in the United Kingdom and Scotland already, he said, but none in America.

Many people are unaware that men can suffer from eating disorders just like women, said Branson.

“The statistics I’ve read put it at 10 percent of people diagnosed with eating disorders are men, but that’s probably a lot higher because a lot of men don’t acknowledge that they have it or ask for help,” he commented.

Sometimes even physicians may not initially recognize an eating disorder in men, said Branson.

“I feel like when males go to the doctor for help, even doctors kind of overlook an eating disorder as being the problem,” he said. “They think it might be something else, like depression.”

Even when he was receiving treatment for his eating disorder, Branson said there were many times he felt a little underserved.

“When we were in the group sessions, a lot of times it’s still, even with the staff who are heading the group, it’s still tailored toward women because they talk about women’s issues, like menstruation and stuff, and we’re kind of left out over here,” he remarked.

“We’re already outnumbered by women, but even in treatment, you kind of . . . feel ostracized. Men are not getting the same kind of attention, mainly because of the large number of women.”

Today Branson is healthy and happy. He is out of treatment, although he still occasionally has a phone session with a dietician, just to make sure he’s keeping up with what he should. He also occasionally talks with a counselor.

“The treatment I received is a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to really see the stigma of male eating disorders,” says Branson in a YouTube video about his experience.

“Surviving anorexia is an incentive for me to raise awareness about male eating disorders, and to get men the help they desperately need.

“I felt alone both before and during treatment,” he says. “I now know the importance of getting support and allowing yourself to be comfortable.”

Fear of Relapse

The fear of relapsing again is always in the back of Branson’s mind.

“I know it could happen, but I also feel . . . this is very important to me. I want to help other people with eating disorders . . . and I know if I relapse, I won’t be able to do that,” he said. “So that’s something that really keeps me going, knowing that if I relapse again, none of this is going to happen.”

Branson feels confident he would recognize the problem if it returned, and said now he has people he can reach out to before it would get too bad.

“I’m ready to move on to new and better things,” he said.

Branson recommends the NEDA website,www.nationaleatingdisorders.org, to learn more about the types of eating disorders, how to recognize the symptoms, how to get help and more.

There can be different warning signs for men than women, but the general ones are the same for both:

• Weight loss

• Being body conscious

• Having no appetite

• Not being social, wanting to be alone more than usual

• Moodiness

“Not eating and being depressed — that was something my mom would always point out, when I was struggling,” said Branson. “I wasn’t fun to be around. I never laughed, and I never found anything funny. I just had this mean look on my face the whole time.”

For parents or friends of someone struggling with an eating disorder, there are tips on how to approach the subject.

“Many people will deny it. They may even be in denial to themselves,” said Branson.

London Calling

In spite of or maybe because of his issues with food, Branson said he decided to get a degree in nutrition and fitness. Now after all he’s been through, he’s even more motivated to work in the field.

“Nutrition has always been something I’ve been interested in, and after this, it’s become even more of an incentive because I want to help others,” he said.

In applying for UCL, Branson had to write a personal statement on why you wanted to apply and what you hope to do with it, so he shared his background and also his goals of starting a group for men in America.

Branson is spending his summer getting ready for his year studying abroad.

He’s filling out loan and grant applications, setting up a UK bank account and applying for a visa. He also established a GoFundMe.com site where people can make donations to help him achieve his dreams.

After just one month, he raised $707 donated by 14 people. He doesn’t have a goal for the site, because regardless of how much he raises, he still plans to study at UCL. He leaves at the beginning of September.

“I’ll take out a loan if I have to,” he remarked.

Branson admits he is concerned about traveling so far, especially for someone with a physical disability, but his parents will be going along with him on the initial trip, and he’s working with the university and their disability services.

“That takes off some of the pressure,” he said.

Branson said he recently found out he only has class twice a week, but he’s not sure how long the classes are and what kind of workload they will include.

“I could be bombarded with homework,” he said, with a smile. “After all, it is grad school.”

Top Eating Disorder Facts, A Parent's Alert released today by NoBullying

Research indicates that in the US alone, over 30 million adults are suffering or have suffered from an eating disorder. Eating disorders and distorted body images are a lurking danger around each and every teen. NoBullying releases today the guide to top eating disorder facts as a guide for parents.

The first step when it comes to eating disorders is simply to know if someone is suffering from it. The symptoms include self criticism, negative thoughts about their body and food. Seeking medical help is necessary in most cases. The earlier treatment is given, the greater the outcome of physical and emotional recovery; therefore, putting the monster to rest.

The guide lists the several types of eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder among other types. Anorexia Nervosa slowly causes self-starvation, as the body is denied the essential nutrients it needs to have normal function. It leads to muscle loss/weakness, severe dehydration causing kidney failure and a general sense of fatigue.

Anorexia Nervosa has the highest rate of mortality of these disorders. For females that suffer from Anorexia between the ages of 15 and 24, the mortality rate is much higher than any other cause of death. Eating disorders facts tend to refer to social pressure to be "thin" as the main cause.

Bulimia Nervosa, a life-threatening condition that causes cycles of binging followed by self-induced vomiting, purging the body of the food to prevent weight gain. Bulimia causes both physical and mental symptoms. Low self-esteem related to body image and an out of control feeling during the binging episodes.

The guide serves as a reminder that parents can prevent their children from developing these disorders by building self esteem, encouraging healthy eating and attitude toward nutrition and appearance.

The guide also serves to remind parents and educators about the dangers of fat bullying and bullying children with obesity problems and how they contribute to creating a very distorted body image within teens and children, pushing them into developing depression or eating disorders.

It is up to parents and teacher to talk to children about the fact that the pressure of fitting in can be overwhelming; keeping a healthy attitude is the key to beating the blues that comes with body image issues. Children need to be taught to love themselves regardless of how they look or wear. Children must also learn about the benefits to a healthy diet, nutrition and how to avoid the peer pressure to fit in.

Macartan Mulligan, co-founder of NoBullying.com, said, "This guide on eating disorder facts is related to bullying in every possible way. Children who are bullied because of their bodies are taught subconsciously to work on themselves to fit it which translates to developing eating disorders."

He added that parents and teachers should make a point to educate the younger generations about the sad outcome of bullying online and offline. According to Mulligan, it is quite imperative to press for more firm laws condemning all acts of bullying and harassment.

NoBullying.com features many pages dedicated to parents, teens, teachers, health professionals as well as posts related to cyber safety and the latest news about law making concerning curbing bullying worldwide as well as inspirational bullying poems and famous bullying quotes.

The website regularly updates its bullying statistics and cyber bullying statistics as it is essential to understand how widespread the bullying epidemic is. It also regularly runs cyber bullying surveys and questionnaires to get recent updated statistics on everything related to cyberbullying.

He also added that anyone suffering from bullying in any form or way can always find advice and help on the NoBullying website – but if anyone is suffering from severe bullying or cyber bullying, the best thing is to talk to someone locally – a parent, teacher or local organization that has been set up to help with specialized councilors to deal with this topic.

Read more: http://m.digitaljournal.com/pr/1970023#ixzz33v18Zc5Q

Diabetic put her life at risk to lose weight: Mother stopped taking her insulin injections after ballooning to 19 stone Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2649543/Diabetic-life-risk-lose-weight-Mother-stopped-taking-insulin-injections-ballooning-19-stone

• Hayleigh Juggins put on weight while pregnant with her daughter, Angel
• After the birth she wanted to slim down so stopped taking insulin injections
• The 20-year-old's weight dropped from 19st to 10st 10lbs
• But, doctors told her her sight was being damaged and she risked blindness
• So, she is now taking the insulin again to ensure she is there for her child

A diabetic mother whose weight ballooned during pregnancy put her life at risk when she stopped taking her insulin medication in a bid to slim down.

Hayleigh Juggins ignored doctors' advice, halting the treatment for her diabetes having blamed the hormone for her weight reaching 19st.

The 20-year-old was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was 15 years old.

When she fell pregnant three years later, she began taking high doses of insulin, which she claims led to rapid weight gain.

+5

Hayleigh Juggins, 20, is diabetic but she stopped taking insulin after the birth of her daughter, Angel. She hoped this would help her to lose weight after she ballooned to 19st

By the time she gave birth when she was 19, she weighed 19st and was wearing size 22 clothes.

Horrified, she decided to disregard doctors’ instructions to take insulin after each meal and subsequently found herself shrinking.

Stable today at 10st 10lb, Miss Juggins says that despite being pleased at gaining her dream figure, she will never again risk serious damage to her health by going against medical advice.

She said: ‘There was a war within me - on the one hand I was distraught at having gained so much weight during pregnancy, but on the other I knew what I was doing was bad for me.

 

More...

• 'I've experienced life and death but I'm still here': Brave father who lost three limbs to flesh-eating bug finally leaves hospital after doctors gave him a 3% chance of survival
• Mother diagnosed with breast cancer during pregnancy had mastectomy 30 minutes after giving birth ¿ in the same operating theatre

‘When I was told that I might lose my sight if I didn’t take the proper dosages of insulin, I knew I had to start looking after myself again. I wanted to see my little girl grow up.’

Miss Juggins, a student, struggled with weight gain during her early years, eventually reaching size 22 by the time she was 14.

She said: ‘I had a few family problems at home, so I over ate. I relied on sugary things, like cake and sweets, to make me feel better.

‘I spent my pocket money on chocolate and snacks and waited until everyone in the house had gone to bed before I took myself to my room and ate the whole stash.’

+5

+5

Miss Juggins dropped from 19st (left) to 10st 10lbs (right) after she stopped taking her insulin

+5

Ms Juggins was told by doctors that she was risking blindness by not taking her insulin injections. As a result, she decided to start taking them as she wanted to ensure she would be there for her daughter, Angel

When she was 15, she began mysteriously losing weight.

She said: ‘I had recently been diagnosed with depression and anxiety and was in counselling.

'People assumed I was losing weight because I was happier and less dependent on comfort eating.’

Shortly afterwards she was shocked to be diagnosed with type one diabetes.

She said: ‘I kept asking for glasses of water because I was so thirsty. A friend’s mother was a nurse and said it was a sign of diabetes.

'Not long after I collapsed on a night out with friends and had to be taken by ambulance to hospital.

‘I’d experienced diabetic ketoacidosis, when my body couldn’t absorb sugar for fuel. In hospital I was completely delirious - I found out later the doctors told my mum that I could have slipped into a coma.’

DO INSULIN INJECTIONS CAUSE WEIGHT GAIN AND WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU STOP TAKING THEM?

Weight gain is a common side effect for people who take insulin.

This is because insulin allows glucose to enter the cells and if a person eats more calories than they need to maintain a healthy weight, the cells will get more glucose than they need.

Glucose that is not used by the cells will accumulate as fat.

However, it is perfectly possible for most diabetics to maintain a healthy weight while taking insulin if they are active and watch what they eat.

If a person who has been told to take insulin does not do so, they risk a whole range of complications.

This is because having high glucose levels in the body can damage blood vessels, nerves and organs.

Prolonged spells of high blood sugar levels can cause heart disease, strokes, blindness, kidney disease, foot ulcers, sexual dysfunction and even result in amputations.

Source: Mayo Clinic and NHS Choices

Having immediately been diagnosed with diabetes Miss Juggins, of Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, was set on a daily routine of insulin injections which saw her take medicine up to four times a day.

She said: ‘I didn’t appreciate the seriousness of my diagnosis at first. I didn’t want to be diabetic and found the change to my routine difficult.

‘I also put on a lot of weight, as a side effect of the insulin, and having been advised to eat a carbohydrate-rich diet.

‘I fell into the habit of taking time off insulin when I felt my weight was getting too high, and I found controlling my weight became a lot easier.’

When, aged 18, she became pregnant with her daughter Angel, now two, she was careful to increase her insulin intake to make sure her health was protected.

But shortly after giving birth in May 2012, she realised she had reached 19st and was back to wearing size 22 clothes.

She said: ‘I hadn’t realised what state I’d allowed my body to get into. I’d more than doubled my insulin intake, but I didn’t realise it would have such an effect on my weight.’

Many patients requiring insulin treatment report weight gain as the anabolic agent aids cells’ ability to absorb glucose. If more glucose enters the cells than is used as energy, it accumulates as fat.

Miss Juggins said: ‘I decided to continue with one daily dose but discontinued the injections after each meal.

‘The doctors had made it quite clear to me that I was insulin dependent. I knew that choosing not to take it was a life-threatening decision.

‘But I felt much happier about myself. I could feel that my body chemistry wasn’t right, but on the other hand, I was able to relax and felt much more like me as my weight fell away.’

In less than 18 months, Miss Juggins slimmed down to 10st 10lb, and was able to fit into size 10 clothing.

But a routine check-up in January this year was enough to shock her back into resuming her proper dosage.

She said: ‘I began signs of diabetic retinopathy. Unless I’m very careful from now onwards, there’s a chance I could go blind.

+5

Ms Juggins (pictured with friends since her weight loss) says she now realises her health is more important than her weight so she will continue to take her insulin injections

‘It’s a relatively simple situation to fix - I’m lucky the complications weren’t worse. There might be problems in the future that I don’t know about yet, but when I decided to stop taking the full insulin dose, I didn’t care.

‘The eye exam made me think about Angel. If I lost my sight, I wouldn’t be able to see her grow up. The battle in my head came to end.

‘I wanted to lose weight- but I wanted to see my little girl more.’

Miss Juggins said she feels sympathy for young people who are diagnosed with diabetes and urged them to educate themselves as much as possible about the effects of the condition and treatment.

She said: ‘Don’t act like the diagnosis is nothing, like I did. When I was first diagnosed, I felt very alone. I was given all sorts of different leaflets, some of which had very shocking language about how life-changing having diabetes is. It was scary.

‘By asking questions I’ve come to realise that the most important thing is figuring out the best course of action for you. I’m able to control it – it doesn’t control me.

‘Me and Angel are very close. She’s wonderful - very boisterous and energetic. I want to make sure I’m here for her as long as possible.’

Libby Dowling, Diabetes UK Clinical Advisor, said: 'Skipping  insulin to lose weight is extremely dangerous. This is because if you haven't got enough insulin in your body your blood glucose will get too high, which can lead to devastating health complications.

'In the short term it can lead to diabetic ketoacidosis, an extremely dangerous condition that requires immediate medical attention and treatment in hospital, and can even be fatal. And in the long term skipping insulin can lead to complications such as blindness, stroke and amputations.

'It is crucial that people who are omitting their insulin are given rapid access to psychological support as they are risking their health and even their life.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2649543/Diabetic-life-risk-lose-weight-Mother-stopped-taking-insulin-injections-ballooning-19-stone.html#ixzz33nQ2Lyf6
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook