Scary Stats

Just an little warning here, most of the websites I pulled these statistics from made a point to say that the actually study of Anorexia is fairly new (as in 15-25 years) so some of this information may change. I'll try to keep it as updated as I possibly can.

• An estimated 8 million Americans have an eating disorder (7 million women, 1 million men)
• 1 in 200 American women suffer from Anorexia
• 2 to 3 in 100 American women suffer from bulimia
• Almost half of all Americans personally know someone with an eating disorder
• 10-15% of people with anorexia/bulimia are males
• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness
• An estimated 5-10% of anorexics die within 10 years of contracting the disease; 18-20% will die after 20 years, and only 30-40% will ever fully recover
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15-24 years old
• 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems
• Only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders receive treatment
• Anorexia is the 3rd most common chronic illness among adolescents
• 95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25
• 50% of girls between the ages of 11 and 13 see themselves as overweight
• 80% of 13 year olds have attempted to lose weight
• 40 – 60% of high school girls diet.
• 40% of 9 year old girls dieted.
• Four of every five women in the United States are dissatisfied with their appearance.
• 7-9% of those practicing "normal dieting" will advance to partial or full-syndrome eating disorders.
• 45% of women in the United States are dieting today, as are 25% of men.
• According to a 1996 study, 95% of dieters will regain weight they lose within five years.
• Amount of money spent on dieting and weight-loss-related spending per year: $40 billion.
• As early as 1991, a study found that 81% of 10-year-olds fear that they will become fat.
• A survey of women on a college campus found that 91% had tried to diet to control their weight.


These are some scary scary stats here folks. I obviously (if you couldn't tell from the LARGE, bold, italic, redness of it...) want to make a point to talk about people moving from normal dieting to full-syndrome eating disorders. 7-9% might seem small, but it's like the lottery, you probably won't be the one, but you might be.

I think that it's good to make sure that you are maintaining healthy habits when you start a diet/exercise program. A good tool is to suck it up and have someone take that dreaded before bikini picture. With today's digital cameras and camera phones, you should be able to do this while rest-assured that no one will ever see it but you and the person who took the camera. If you're really luck, the other person will be the set timer on your camera.

Anywho, I digress. The point of the photo is that it can help you keep a visual on what you looked like before you began the program. Many of us lose weight and fail to see that we've lost it, because, obviously we were along the for the entire ride... so it happened s-l-o-w-l-y. Sometimes we can convince ourselves we so haven't progressed that we don't even attempt the "jeans" test because we're afraid it will depress us too much.

Other things to keep in mind are that most studies say that over 60 minutes of cardio in a day will not truly benefit you anymore than just the minimum 30. Your heart will not become exponentially stronger because you ran 17 miles today. It probably won't even have the calorie burning effect that you'd like it to have. Unfortunately for us, our bodies tend to be significantly smarter than our minds, and your body will switch into an efficiency mode after 60 minutes of continued cardio, preventing you from burning even a fraction of what you were burning before.

Think it's impossible for your body to run on nothing? It's certainly not. This is why Anorexia is such an awful idea. When you lose weight from not eating, the last place your body will go for fuel is to your fat stores. These live on your body because when we were cavemen we went for extended periods of time without warmth or food. Fat stores are the absolute last thing that your body wants to give up. Do you know what has more nutrients than fat stores? You're bones and your muscles... When you are anorexic, you have lost a lot of RANDOM weight, meaning bone, muscle and water weight NOT fat.

Please eat food. It's delicious, and it's necessary to lose body fat.