Eating Disorders: What Everyone Needs to Know®

by B Timothy Walsh, Evelyn Attia, Deborah R. Glasofer

Eating disorders are potentially life-threatening psychiatric illnesses commonly accompanied by serious medical problems. They typically appear during adolescence or early adulthood, a time when young people are heading to college or interviewing for a first job. Many people recover fully from eating disorders, but others become chronically ill, and symptoms can continue into middle age and beyond.

Written by leading authorities in eating disorders research and treatment, Eating What Everyone Needs to Know® answers common questions about eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder, as well as a newly described condition, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID). Practical yet authoritative, the book defines the eating disorders, explains what we know about them based on the latest science, and describes how treatment works. Importantly, the book dispels common myths about eating disorders, such as the notion that they occur only amongst the affluent, that they affect only girls and women, or that they simply result from environmental factors such as the fashion industry and society's obsession with thinness. In reality, as the book explains, there is substantial evidence that eating disorders are brain-based illnesses that do not discriminate, and that they have been around for a very long time. Eating
What Everyone Needs to Know® is essential reading for those seeking authoritative and current information about these often misunderstood illnesses.

212 pages, Hardcover

Published July 1, 2020

Reviews

[A · Rating 2 out of 5]

4/10. The book provides the necessary information to identify the thoughts and behaviors which characterize eating disorders, as well as things to look for at the borderline. Besides that, it is extremely introductory material. And it ignores many important aspects of the problem. It is certainly not, as another reviewer put it, a “summa theologica”. Aquinas would be laughing in his grave at that statement. I love the “so fascinating” revelation that — gasp — there is a genetic component to eating disorders. How much? We don’t find out.

Also, did you know that treatments like intensive care actually have not been studied as to their effectiveness, at least according to the authors (who helped write the DSM-5 entry on eating disorders). So people are paying $1,000+ a day for treatment that has not even been shown to work. What? I guess the Freudian tactic of diagnose and delude (for $$$, of course) hath worked again. Or at least that is my working hypothesis until the ultra humble authors quit their “the evidence is contradictory and everything is blurry” feign of ignorance regarding nearly everything.

I love how there is a thing called “evidence based treatment”, as if evidence is a supplement to a given treatment, but by no means necessary. Freud rears his ugly head again.

Last point: the authors seem to think that men wanting to be muscular and women wanting to be slim is just media-fed propaganda. The ideal body image is just a ruse. “Everyone has their own healthy weight”. Have they heard of evolutionary approaches to sexual attraction, that males would be more attractive if big and strong, and that females are more attractive if their traits signified fertility over evolutionary history? “No matter!”, says these makers of a section of the official DSM-5. “Remember, it is all about YOU and your hedonic psychological ‘health’”. “Just think good thoughts and all will be well”. But what about your own mating prospects? The health and number of children you have is an objective aspect of reality that IS affected by who is attracted to you but not by your hedonic wishes. But what individualist needs children? And what academic has any sense of posterity?

I wish academics would think and write more like Edward Dutton.

[Chris Breitenbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent, up-t0-date overview of eating disorders--what we know, how to treat them, what to ask. Nice to have in one place.

[Soo · Rating 4 out of 5]

- provided apps suggestion
- IBT, CBT, DBT and explained
- How recovery looks like
Overall good, not many anecdotes but very informative

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book, first of all because the DSM-V is finally used and then because it is aware of the latest research both in the psychotherapeutic and pharmacological field and this does not happen often. An uptodate summa theologica.

Libro veramente molto interessante, prima di tutto perché viene utilizzato finalmente il DSM-V e poi perché é al corrente delle ultime ricerche sia in campo psicoterapeutico che farmacologico e questo non capita spesso. Una summa theologica uptodate.

THANKS EDELWEISS FOR THE PREVIEW!