May 25, 2011 is National Senior Health and Fitness Day.
New England resources for anorexia in seniors include:
- New England Eating Disorders Program at Mercy Hospital, Portland, ME
- Walden Behavioral Center, Waltham, MA
- Laurel Hill Inn, Medford, MA
- The Institute of Living, Hartford, CT
- The Klarman Eating Disorders Center at McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA
- New England Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA
- Brattleboro Retreat (affiliate of Dartmouth Medical School), Brattleboro, VT
- Over 10 million Americans have an eating disorder. Many of them are seniors. Seniors in this article are considered women over 69-years old.
Anorexia nervosa, also known as Anorexia, is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Those with anorexia feel hunger, but deny themselves all but very small amounts of food. Anorexia is seen as having an average intake of 600 to 800 calories a day. Some people eat even less and die. Anorexia is truly a very serious mental illness and is the number one deadliest mental illness.
Anorexia has been equated with young girls and young women but new studies show that it is likely to occur in senior women.
Ten-thousand death records over a four-year period were looked at. The most common complications that led to death from anorexia were cardiac arrest and imbalances in electrolytes and fluids.
Another report showed that eating disorders in senior women have increased dramatically over the last decade. In many cases, health professionals are not aware of the prevalence among seniors and sometimes the results are fatal.
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