January 18, 2005
CHAPEL HILL — During the past five years, the number of women in their 30s, 40s, 50s and older seeking treatment for eating problems has risen alarmingly, said Dr. Cynthia M. Bulik, the co-author of “Runaway Eating: the Eight-Point Plan to Conquer Adult Food and Weight Obsessions.””Eating problems don’t discriminate on the basis of age. Our approach is a beacon of light for adult women who are trapped by their own food and weight obsessions,” said Bulik, who is the William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan distinguished professor of eating disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and director of the UNC Eating Disorders Program at UNC Hospitals.

She also is professor of nutrition, a department housed in the schools of public health and medicine and holds the only endowed professorship in eating disorders in the United States.

In 2004, 35 percent of the women treated in the UNC Eating Disorders Program were 30 years old or older, Bulik said. The Cornell Eating Disorders Program saw a 50 percent increase in similarly aged women seeking treatment for eating disorders five years ago, she added. In March 2003, The New York Times reported that the number of women ages 40 and older at Remuda Ranch, the nation’s second-largest eating disorders treatment center, had doubled since 1997.

“Runaway Eating” was published this month by Rodale Books and is aimed at helping the growing number of midlife women who engage in unhealthy heating behaviors to “run away” from emotional and stress-related problems, Bulik said.

Bulik and co-author Nadine Taylor, a registered dietitian and chairwoman of the American Nutraceutical Association’s Women’s Health Council, define runaway eating as the “consistent use of food or food-related behaviors (such as purging or exercising excessively) to deal with unpleasant feelings and feeling that these behaviors are out of control.”

The driving forces behind runaway eating and clinically defined disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are the same, they write, but the symptoms aren’t as severe or frequent for a runaway eater.

A few examples of warning signs that may indicate runaway eating, as cited in the book, are alternating between severely restricting one’s diet and eating large quantities of food, regularly performing exhausting exercise routines to burn off calories one has eaten and having at least one out-of-control eating binge in the last year.

People with runaway eating are often desperate for tools to help with their problematic eating behaviors. But since they “fly beneath the radar” of the health care system, they are often on their own. This book gives them the tools they need to get control of their eating before it runs away with them, Bulik said.

More information about the book is available online at www.rodalestore.com.

 

This release was researched and written by Tom Hughes of UNC School of Medicine.

Note: Contact Bulik at (919) 843-1689 or cbulik@med.unc.edu.

UNC School of Medicine contact: Stephanie Crayton, (919) 966-2860 or scrayton@unch.unc.edu

For further information please contact Emily Smith either by phone at 919.966.8498 or by email at emily_smith@unc.edu

 

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