Eating Disorders Around the World
© Heather Mudgett.
Planet-Therapy.com, reports that "Eating disorder treatment centers report anorexia affects people across the spectrum of gender, age, race, class, and sexual preference. Anorexia is not only isolated to North Americans and Europeans, treatment centers serve a full-range of cultures including people from Iran, Korea, Turkey, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Africa. While anorexia is more likely to affect younger women, eating disorders include women and men, gay and straight, rich and poor, old and young." Read their entire article at http://www.planet-therapy.com/problems/a...
The NY Times has reported that eating disorder, while long thought to be a western malady, can now frequently be found in China. They report that "patients tend to be well-off and educated urban girls in their middle to late teens. In most cases, she said, the diagnosis is made fairly late in the course of the disorder since there is still great stigma attached to mental illness in China." You'll find this article at http://www.bebeyond.com/KeepCurrent/Amer...
Suite101 Contributing Editor, Mark Stuart Ellison, recently focused an entire article on the alarming rise of anorexia in China. Read his article at http://www.i5ive.com/article.cfm/anorexi...
In Japan, the increase in eating disorders was discussed at the "Mother-Daughter Relationship" workshop. "In recent times, it has been pointed out that the psychological control that some mothers impose over their daughters prevents daughters from being independent. As a result, many daughters express their pain and frustration through bulimia, anorexia..." You can read more of this discussion at http://www.women.city.yokohama.jp/englis...
In her 1997 L.A. Times Article titled "Women's Eating Disorders Go Global", Sonni Efron discusses the rise in eating disorder cases in North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Tapei, Shanghai, Beijing, Philippines, India and Pakistan. In Hong Kong, she writes, "20 to 30 types of diet pills are in common use, including variations on the "fen-phen" combination of fenfluramine and phentermine that was banned in the United States last month for causing heart damage, said Dr. Sing Lee, a psychiatrist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who has written extensively on eating disorders. Though the Health Ministry has asked pharmaceutical companies to withdraw the offending drugs." In Singapore, she reports "the anorexia death of a 21-year-old, 70-pound student at the prestigious National University made headlines last year, dieting itself has become a fashion statement. On Orchard Road, the city's toniest shopping district, a hot-selling T-shirt designed by "essence" bears this stream-of-consciousness essay on modern female angst: "I've got to get into that dress. It's easy. Don't eat . . . I'm hungry. Can't eat breakfast. But I ought to . . . I like breakfast. I like that dress . . . Still too big for that dress. Hmm. Life can be cruel."" This is a great article on the often overlooked subject of eating disorders around the world. I encourage you to read it at http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/50/...
