Released on = August 15, 2006, 10:51 am

Press Release Author = Malcolm Evans

Industry = Healthcare

Press Release Summary = Problem eaters and dieters are too readily being pushed into
medical categorizations, limiting abilities to self-help and recover.

Press Release Body = A leading weight-control organization believes that exaggerated
claims about the extent of eating disorders are contributing to the general obesity
crisis.

The Weight Foundation says that whilst major eating disorders remain dangerous and
distressing, over-zealous diagnoses are fanning the flames of food distress.

And the charity claims that much more emphasis needs to be placed on researching
dieting, which it argues is a significantly under-recognized epidemic.

Founder Malcolm Evans explains that predictions are now commonplace that 30-50% of
women will experience an eating disorder some time within their lifetime.

"This is what is called \'pathologizing\' - the categorization of problems or
conditions into disease. Once issues become concretized like this, the focus of
remedy changes. It goes from being voluntary habit change to becoming treatment by
third parties," he says.

"I do not for one minute believe that up to half of women will suffer an eating
disorder. However what I believe matters not at all; if people expect themselves to
be at risk, then risk automatically increases."

Until recently, definitions of eating disorders have generally comprised Anorexia
and Bulimia. The research community is now provisionally exploring \'Binge Eating
Disorder\' to capture the notion of repeated and out of control overeating. BED as a
concept is ring-fenced with a considerable array of necessary anxieties and
obsessions to differentiate it from lesser overeating.

Despite the cautious progress of researchers in testing the boundaries of eating
disorders, Evans is convinced that a less-sophisticated eating disorders bandwagon
is creating a disruptive and destructive momentum.

"Individual issues of self-image anxieties, overeating, continual dieting and
obesity concerns are being conflated into broader quasi-medical conditions.

"This is not to downplay for one minute the dangers and distress caused by
full-blown eating disorders, including serious binge eating. However people can
exercise a far greater control over what is personal and cultural than they can over
what is becoming to be seen as endemic and medical," comments the 46 year old social
entrepreneur from Manchester, England.

The Weight Foundation is researching the causes and culture of long-term dieting. It
believes that dieting, for many people, has become a way of life largely divorced
from any useful connexion with weight-loss and weight-control.

"The more the eating disorder zealots push too many people down the road of disease
labeling, the lower the chances for lots of them of maintaining a natural and
relaxed relationship with food," says Evans.

Web Site = http://www.weightfoundation.com

Contact Details = The Weight Foundation, 137 Wendover Road, Brooklands, Manchester
M23 9JS, UK, info@weightfoundation.com