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Stanford researchers go online to fight eating disorders Nov. 06, 2006 The Programs have catchy names like "Food, Mood and Attitude" and "Full of Ourselves" and an ambitious goal: Prevent adolescent eating disorders, which tend to be chronic, hard to treat and sometimes fatal. But do they work? In the case of one such program — "Student Bodies," developed by researchers at Stanford University — a recently published study suggests the answer is yes. Stanford researchers, who followed 480 female California college students for up to two years, report the eight-week Internet-based program reduced the development of eating disorders in women at high risk. "This study shows that innovative intervention can work," said Thomas Insel, director of the National Insitute of Mental Health, which funded the study; its findings appeared in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. Prevention programs for eating disorders have proliferated in the past decade, in part because of the high cost and low success rate of treatment programs. The disorders include anorexia, a pathological fear of gaining weight marked by self-starvation. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness: About 10 percent of patients hospitalized for treatment ultimately die of it. An estimated 4percent of teen-age girls and young women suffer from anorexia or bulimia, which is marked by recurrent bingeing and purging, or binge-eating disorder, in which sufferers gorge themselves until they become sick. Another 4percent are believed to suffer from less severe subclinical forms of these disorders, which can last a lifetime and wreak physical and emotional havoc. The incidence of the disorders has doubled in the past 40 years, according to statistics compiled by the Eating Disorders Coalition, a Washington advocacy group. "This study is a very significant piece of research because it demonstrates that one can transfer what's known about risk factors into a program that can be applied at very low cost," said Michael Levine, an eating disorders expert and professor of psychology at Kenyon College in Ohio. "And it gives every indication of being able to reduce important risk factors" for eating disorders such as excessive concern about body image and weight. Read More : http://www.insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_4610175
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