January 2004 Archives

Eating Disorders Awareness week will be held in the first week of Feb. The Eating Disorders Association has loads of information on their website about fundraising and educational events to be held throughout the week.

Events include the official Eating Disorders Association Launch of the NICE guidelines on Monday 2nd Feb in London.

NICE guidelines for eating disorders are now available from the NICE website at http://www.nice.org.uk/cat.asp?c=101239

There has been little coverage in the media so far, mainly highlighting the risk to teenagers and the lack of NHS resources to deliver the treatments which are needed for the disorders.

Lorraine Bell and Pavilion are offering an interesting one-day conference on implementing the NICE guidelines. It will be on 23rd Feb in central London.

Here's a summary of the main eating disorder journals worldwide with links (where available) to publishers websites and information for authors:

Eating Disorders Review is published by Gurze books

International Journal of Eating Disorders is now the journal of the American Academy of Eating Disorders, published by Wiley

European Eating Disorders Review is published in the UK, also by Wiley
Eating and Weight Disorders is a new-ish European journal, but I couldn't find any info about on the web. If you know where there is any, do leave a comment.

Eating Behaviours is another fairly new journal, published by Elsevier. Contents pages are available from Science Direct

Eating Disorders: Journal of Treatment and Prevention is a US-based journal with an approachable feel.

Finally, Eating Disorders Online is the journal of the the e-journal of the Eating Disorders Internetwork Project, and is, as far as I know, the only online journal devoted exclusively to eating disorders. However, I'm not sure of its current status as it hasn't been updated in a good while.

Professor Chris Fairburn, author of many books and papers in the field, is offering two training courses over the next few months.

EDNET, an eating disorder network for UK professionals was finally born today during the Warwick meeting.
An idea originally conceived by Bob Palmer, and gestated over several months, the idea of some kind of UK professional network was welcomed by attendees at the meeting. Suggestions for the format of the organisation ranged from a simple information exchange in the form of an email list or bulletin board to a more formal organisation with a committee, constitution and regular meetings.
It will be interesting to see how the organisation develops. In the meantime, slides from the presentations made at the meeting will soon be available on the Eating Disorders Association website at http://www.edauk.com/ednet/.
I'm not sure who interested professionals should email to be kept informed of developments in EDNET - anyone who can help me here is welcome to post a comment or email me.

The long awaited National Institute for Clinical Evidence (NICE) guidelines for the treatment of eating disorders are to be published next wednesday. They will be available from the NICE website. Currently just the draft guidelines are there.

I was lucky enough to attend a day conference on the guidelines and their implications in Warwick today - more interesting than it sounds in fact.

Simon Gowers, chair of the panel who came up with the guidelines, gave an excellent presentation summarising the main points of the guidelines. The strongest evidence is available for bulimia nervosa treatment, with CBT coming out on top. Evidence for the treatment of anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders is pretty lacking, which is disappointing; hopefully the silver lining to this cloud will be sympathetic consideration of applications to funding bodies for this type of research.

Having spent many hours on the road today, I will save the details of the rest of the presentations for another time. Suffice to say that I wait with interest to see the impact of the guidelines on treatment available for eating disorders in the UK.

EDR is the re-incarnation of my previous site, Lucy Serpell's Eating Disorders Resources (hosted at http://www.serpell.com/eat.html).
I'm planning to gradually move across and revise material from the old site, but in the short term I wanted to list a few useful links for eating disorder information.

SomethingFishy's site is one of the most useful eating disorder sites on the web. Particularly recommended are pages on information and support for family and friends of sufferers and physical problems caused by eating disorders. The site also features a chat room where you can talk with sufferers, carers and professionals.

In the UK, the Eating Disorders Association provides excellent advice and support via its website and helplines

After the Diet is a network of professionals dedicated to helping people overcome eating problems

The Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of eating disorders

Anorexia Nervosa: Judy's Story is an uplifting site written by Judy Tam Sargeant who has recovered from anorexia. Her book "The Long Road Back; A Survivor's Guide to Anorexia" is now available from Amazon in the US and Amazon in the UK, and all good bookshops!

Psychotherapist Joanna Poppink has her own great website, Eating Disorder Recovery at Poppink.com. She has also written many excellent articles about eating disorders for Self Help and Psychology Magazine

Read about eating disorders at Healthyplace.com

Mirror-mirror is a Canadian website devoted to eating disorders with helpful advice on approaching someone who you suspect has an eating disorder

Gurze books publish over 100 books and tapes on Eating Disorders and you can order their catalogue free online