SHR

Vegetarian? You might have an eating disorder. At least, that’s the takeaway from the latest work of Kelly Zuromski et al. published in Eating Behaviors that examined the prevalence of vegetarianism within three female samples with varying severity of eating disorder symptoms (i.e., nonclinical, subclinical, clinical). All participants came from locations in the southeastern U.S., and were included in the nonclinical group if they denied any lifetime eating pathology and were included in the subclinical group if they endorsed any eating pathology (i.e., fasting, binge eating, self-induced vomiting, laxative use, and excessive exercise) in the past month. The clinical group was women recruited from an eating disorder treatment center. Generally, the nonclinical group ate a wider variety of foods compared to the other groups. The prevalence of self-identified, lifetime vegetarianism was lowest in the nonclinical group (6.80%), and highest in the clinical group (34.80%), with the subclinical group falling in between (17.60%). Additionally,...

Fasting can take a variety of forms. One such is alternate day fasting (ADF) in which individuals do exactly as the name states, alternate fasting and feeding days. Although this originally encompassed not eating for the entire day and creating a roughly 36 hour fast from dinner one night to breakfast two days after, a more prudent version involves only fasting until dinner the following day, about 24 hours. This form of ADF has a strong track record for aiding weight loss and reducing cardiometabolic risk in normal-weight and overweight-obese persons alike. However, although compliance in these and other trials has been exceptional with few reported adverse effects, concerns about the safety of ADF have yet to be directly addressed.