National Eating Disorders Week

In the United States, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Millions more are struggling with binge eating disorder.

The last week in every February is National Eating Disorders Week.

The aim of NEDAwareness Week is to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses – not choices – and it’s important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder.

For more information, see the National Eating Disorders Association.

The Eating Disorders Research Society is an international organization of researchers in the field of eating disorders interested in anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder and obesity. The 15th Annual Meeting of the Eating Disorders Research Society will be held September 24-26, 2009 in Brooklyn, New York.

Media Use and Depression

This month’s issue of the Archives of General Psychology includes the results of a seven year study investigating the association between media exposure in adolescence and depression in young adulthood.  Of the 4,142 participants (47.5% female and 67.0% white) who were not depressed at baseline and who underwent follow-up assessment, 308 (7.4%) reported symptoms consistent with depression at follow-up.

Participants reporting more television use had significantly greater odds of developing depression for each additional hour of daily television use.  The same was true for participants reporting more total media exposure.  However, the study did not find a consistent relationship between development of depressive symptoms and exposure to videocassettes, computer games, or radio.

The study, performed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, concludes that television exposure and total media exposure in adolescence are associated with increased odds of depressive symptoms in young adulthood, especially in young men.

Although Dr. Brian Primack who led the study has been careful to say the results don’t prove that viewing television causes depression, we know time spent watching television often replaces time that could be beneficially devoted to social, academic and athletic activities that facilitate an emotionally healthy sense of accomplishment, teamwork/cooperation and self-respect.

– Frank Mannarino of emoshuns.com

Becoming Emotionally Aware – Vocabulary for Emotions

Two months ago, in an entry titled, “The Look On Your Face,” this blog described a $2.7 million grant for an intervention program designed to help save children from lifelong emotional problems by helping youngsters ages 3-5 to read facial expressions.

Just as reading facial expressions is important, so is recognizing and expressing one’s feelings.  It’s all part of becoming emotionally aware.

A page in the web site for Sesame Street says, “Expressing feelings opens up a whole new world. Children who understand their feelings have a way of coping with both positive and difficult situations. They feel more empathy for others and are better able to cooperate and to learn from them.  Giving your child a vocabulary for his feelings sets the stage for a very deep level of learning.”

Frank Mannarino of emoshuns.com says, “That’s the key: providing and teaching the vocabulary of emotions!”

Tom Drummond of North Seattle Community College published a >vocabulary of emotions that was downloadable as a .pdf file from the web site for Portland State University.

The Journal of the National Association for the Education of Young Children published an article in November 2006, “Teaching Children a Vocabulary for Emotions.”  The authors, Lise Fox and Harper Lentini, describe a number of fun activities to teach children a vocabulary for emotions.

In 2001, the Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning and Teaching published an article, “The Emotions: A Vocabulary before Language.”  The authors, John E. Lennon and Paul F. Barbato, describe how child therapists can enter into the world of child’s play to help children talk about feelings. “Helping them to separate feelings of frustration from feelings of anger, and feelings of disappointment from loneliness aids in the process of getting a handle on being vulnerable and out of control.”

In his 2006 book, “Healthy Anger,” author Bernard Golden wrote (see page 112), “The more you provide children with appropriate vocabulary and concepts to discuss anger and help them make distinctions among emotions, the more sensitive they can be to the complexity of emotional life.”

The Sesame Street web site lists five ways you can help children express their emotions.

The importance of becoming (more) emotionally aware, including the ability to (better) recognize and express one’s feelings, is not limited to children.  To become more emotionally aware is to become more emotionally mature and emotionally healthy.

Suicide: Pain, Suffering, and Prevention

In a comedic piece about euphemisms, George Carlin reminded us that what we now call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, was called “shell shock” in World War I and “battle fatigue” in World War II and “operational exhaustion” during the Korean War.  Carlin reminded us that buried under all this jargon is the pain and suffering of humanity.

In widely distributed news articles published last week, we learned that the U.S. Army believes 24 American soldiers committed suicide in January 2009.  This is more than the number who were killed in combat.  It’s six times the number who committed suicide in January 2008, although the Pentagon points out there were more American soldier suicides in 2008 than any year since the Pentagon began tracking the suicide rate some 28 years ago.

The American Association of Suicidology says suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death among young people ages 15-24, and is the 11th leading cause of death overall.

Through a network of more than 130 crisis centers across the nation, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has answered over one million calls in the past four years.

Yesterday, a new video was posted on the Lifeline YouTube Channel in which Dr. Phil encourages people to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.  In the video, he talks about why people should reach out if they are in suicidal crisis or emotional distress and he says there is no shame in asking for help.

LifelineGallery.org enables suicide survivors, attempt survivors, and suicide prevention supporters to share their stories of hope and recovery. Personal stories (spoken through avatars) illustrate the many ways in which suicide affects others and offer comfort to those who may be suffering alone.

FamilyAware.org helps families “recognize and cope with depressive disorders to get people well and prevent suicides.”

Humor is healthy and depression is treatable, but there’s nothing funny about real pain and suffering.

– Frank Mannarino

What is Emotional Health?

Malehealth.co.uk is run by the Men’s Health Forum, the UK’s leading charity working to improve men’s health.  Part of its web site is devoted to emotional health.

It asks, “Are you emotionally healthy?” and offers seven yes/no questions to help assess your  level of emotional health. It also provides insight to get to know your feelings, identify the beliefs behind your feelings, challenging and changing your beliefs, acting on your feelings, and getting help.

What is emotional health?  The Malehealth web site says, “Emotional health is not about feeling good all the time. Rather, it’s about respecting your emotions – all of them – and accepting that they’re all part of a healthy and colourful existence.”

See: http://www.malehealth.co.uk/userpage1.cfm?item_id=149

Emotionally Healthy Families

On November 16, we shared in this blog efforts to make Salinas, California an “emotional-health-friendly city.” We’re now happy to provide an update.

The Salinas Adult School held its annual Parent University program on Saturday, January 31.  The focus of this year’s Parent University: raising emotionally healthy families.

Through more than 50 workshops, parents learned skills to address problem solving, stress reduction, conflict resolution and healthy communication with their children.

In advance of the event, Kathy Bauer, a parent educator at the school, said, “Parenting is the most challenging job, and parents need support these days to get new ideas, get resources, to get support… I think that’s the whole intent these days, to get more emotional stability in these troubling times… I think parents will have fun. They’ll learn new skills, they’ll learn new community resources, and they’ll get connected with other parents.”

The first 300 people who attended Parent University received a copy of “How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children” by Gerald Newmark.

Original Source: thecalifornian.com/article/20090123/NEWS01/901230314

The Purple Heart and PTSD

In the News and Opinions section of its January 23 issue, The Week magazine reports that the Pentagon has decided soldiers afflicted with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are not eligible for a Purple Heart because, the Pentagon claims, “psychic wounds are hard to diagnose.”

A study by the Rand Corporation estimates 300,000 U.S. troops have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan wounded with symptoms of PTSD, including nightmares and depression. The Pentagon’s position is that “giving out Purple Hearts to hundreds of thousands would cheapen the honor.”

On January 11, 2009, Dan Rodricks of the Baltimore Sun wrote the Pentagon’s position “is not about preserving the prestige of the Purple Heart.”  Instead, he believes the Bush administration wanted to hide the real costs of an unpopular war and was unwilling to admit that U.S. casualties in the Middle East number hundreds of thousands.

In my opinion, troops who suffer from emotional wounds suffer no less than those who suffer from physical wounds.  PTSD can have devastating consequences.  However, contrary to what the Pentagon claims, PTSD can often be diagnosed.  If PTSD is found to be a direct cause of military service, afflicted personnel deserve to be recognized for their sacrifice.

– Frank Mannarino of emoshuns.com

Schoolchildren in Northern Ireland

The Belfast Telegraph reports, “More than one in ten of Northern Ireland’s schoolchildren are suffering from serious mental health problems including anorexia, bulimia, self-harming tendencies and depression – and teachers cannot cope.”

The Ulster Teachers’ Union says these children “need much more support than they are currently receiving.”  All post-primary schools have access to counseling, but this has not yet been extended to the primary sector.

“The UK’s Mental Health Foundation says around 7% of pre-school children are living with a severe mental health problem and 12% of five to 16-year-olds have problems severe enough to need help.”  The Bamford Report estimates 45,000 local children and adolescents have a moderate to severe mental health disorder.

A former teacher says, “These statistics highlight the extent of the problem facing our young people and the need for sustained action by all of us – not just government, but society in general. Children are all our responsibility.”

Original Source: belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/12-of-northern-ireland-pupils-have-mental-health-issues-14139273.html

Linking Emotional and Physical Health

IndianExpress.com reminds us that “poor emotional health can actually weaken the body’s immune system, making you vulnerable to a host of infections.”

A writer asks, “How many of us actually notice that we tend to be more prone to catching cold when emotionally stressed?”

According to the article, a recent (unnamed) report “indicates that people who are depressed tend to be more prone to fractures. Evidently, bone health also depends on mental health.”

The point is: emotional health is important for physical health.

Original Source: indianexpress.com/news/bodymind-link-too-strong/411629/