Avalon Hills Blog

Unfortunately teenage dieting is not just a phase that we can hope they will eventually grow out of. According to a study, unhealthy eating practices arising from eating disorders that are developed during the teenage years are more likely to persist into early adulthood and even further.

Project Eating and Activity in Teens and Young Adults (or Project EAT) is a 10-year study conducted by the University of Minnesota. Project EAT is the first study that kept track of eating and weight control behaviors, spanning from the teenage years to young adulthood. The purpose of the study is to look into eating and activity levels, as well as weight levels of teenagers. The study encompassed over 2,000 participants with 1,257 females and 1,030 males, with a third of the participants having a mean age of 12.8 years at the onset.

Key Findings

These participants were between 12 to 16 years old at the time the study began. And findings showed that unhealthy eating and weight control habits that these adolescents developed during their teens tend to persist into adulthood. These results underscore the importance of being able to prevent, identify and treat eating disorders during the teenage years.

• Approximately half of the female participants and one-fourth of the male participants stated that they were dieting within the past year at the start of the survey.
• Dieting habits in females remained somewhat constant from the teenage years to adulthood.
• Among females, unhealthy weight control habits (such as skipping of meals and the use of diet pills) also stayed steady into these participants’ young adulthood with a slight decrease during the middle adolescence. However, the prevalence of unhealthy dieting practices is still quite high (decreasing to 54.4% from 60.7%).
• As for males, dieting habits remained constant throughout the period with a considerable rise in dieting beginning from their mid-teens to middle young adulthood. Showing that males are more likely to start dieting when they reach their early to mid-20s.
• The prevalence of unhealthy dieting practices climbed from 2.1% to 7.3%, with binge eating rising from 3% to 5.9%.

Importance of Early Action

The lead author of the research, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, emphasized the role of parents and responsible adults to diminish the occurrence of bad eating and dieting. Parents should be on the lookout for early warning signs and should also encourage their children to have a healthy body image. The study also shows the importance of getting help early for things such as anorexia treatment or bulimia treatment.

Some warning signs that often show that a teen may need eating disorder treatment include an excessive preoccupation with one’s weight and appearance, obsession about counting calories, going to the toilet after meals, avoidance of eating or lying about how much he or she has eaten and over-exercising.

Although we are aware of the fight against obesity in the United States we strongly encourage the right habits and methods of doing so should be promoted. Teens should be given the information about how unhealthy weight control methods and dieting actually have a negative effect.

Help for Eating Disorders

Concerned parents can get help for eating disorders through Avalon Hills. Avalon Hills eating disorder treatment center is committed to providing holistic treatment to help teens and adults triumph over eating disorders.

Avalon Hills aims to treat anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders by changing the way they see themselves, their bodies and their surroundings. This is done by helping them towards positive change through new information, new experiences and new insights. By developing a new mindset towards positive change, one is more resistant towards the negative influences that can sometimes cause the eating disorders.

Avalon Hills’ treatment program uses a combination of psychotherapy (both group and individual), animal assisted therapy, outdoor challenges, activities focused on self-expression, tackling body and food fears and more.

One of the most common and well known eating disorders that is very troubling is anorexia.  Anorexia is often misunderstood and hard to diagnose because most people fixate on the idea that it’s an eating disorder.  The tendency is to think that it’s all about food.  This of course isn’t true.  Like all eating disorders, anorexia has a deeper cause and deeper effects.

Anorexia is known to be about control among other things.  It’s used as a way to meet a need in a person’s life.  This is sometimes an emotional need.  Depression, anxiety or insecurity can often trigger eating disorder behaviors.  Eating disorders often develops through everyday activities.  A person may start to experience a lot of anxiety at work, school, or home.  While this person is unable to control the stress, they often find comfort and peace in controlling their eating habits.  This is one of the most common coping mechanisms seen with eating disorders.

Since it is difficult to diagnose the real cause of the eating disorder, people often focus on what is easy to see, which is the behaviors.  A person who is suffering from anorexia may have a severe fear of gaining weight.  They may be underweight and refuse to eat enough to maintain a healthy body weight.  Also, a distorted body image is a very common symptom and body dismorphic disorder may be diagnosed.  This is one of the reasons anorexia becomes particularly dangerous. A person may begin to become medically compromised as this happens.

Anorexia may present in different ways.  Restricting anorexia is where a person suffering may use dieting and restriction to lose weight.  They will often count calories and make sure to eat well under the amount required for daily body functions.  Using excessive exercising may also be used to burn off any calories the person takes in during the day.

Anorexia- purge type, although easily confused with bulimia is where a person may use laxatives or diuretics to rid the body of the food that the person took in.  The person may also induce vomiting or overexercise. Symptoms of this may include low body weight and bouts of restriction of food intake.

Physical anorexia symptoms may include drastic weight loss.  While the person is thin they will continue to diet and restrict intake.  A person may be obsessed and fixated on calories and body image.  Also, a person may be noticed playing with their food as a way of pretending or avoiding to eat.  These are just a few of the many possible symptoms of anorexia.

All eating disorders and their behaviors are serious, and anorexia should not be taken lightly.  It can be fatal if it goes untreated.  Even if it’s not very far along it can still seriously harm the body.  This is why it’s so important to get some form of anorexia help as soon as possible.  Avalon Hills cares about the recovery of those suffering from eating disorders and stresses the need for help. Those dealing with eating disorders are urged to seek professional help by an outpatient team or by an anorexia treatment center.

At Avalon Hills the youngest that we will take a patient is 11 years old. Sadly, we have seen an increase in calls for those looking for treatment options for children that are much younger. There definitely has been an increase over the last few years of children, who are being diagnosed with bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa. This article (http://j.mp/cgnycb) that appeared in a British Publication shows how epidemic eating disorders are in young children in more than just the United States.

One thing of importance is how often medical practitioners are recognizing the condition during the early stages. These disorders are serious mental health issues and although well publicized over the past 20 years, the incidence of eating disorders continues to rise. As discussed in the article, young women and children are endangering their health by doing things such as eliminating protein sources which can quickly result in iron deficiencies that can lead to anemia and then further complications.

One of the most disconcerting aspects of eating disorders is the very young ages at which they are occurring. Currently, the number of eating disorders developing prior to age 16 is on the rise. Without treatment, many of those with serious eating disorders will die. That number greatly diminishes with treatment from a facility specializing in the treatment of eating disorders.

Since most patients may need many months of inpatient or residential treatment which can often come at a very high cost, many of those with bulimia and anorexia go untreated. Those in the field are making the case that there must be a greater awareness within the medical profession that those who are significantly underweight must be assessed as stringently as those who are overweight.

Please contact Avalon Hills for more information about eating disorders and treatment.