Three Vancouver mothers have joined forces with DDB Canada, a Canadian marketing communications agency, to spotlight the potential severe and life-threatening dangers of eating disorders.
Cindy Dobbe, Dolores Elliot, and Deborah Grimm, who have dealt with the struggles of their own daughters’ illnesses, founded The Looking Glass Foundation in 2002, a nonprofit organization that aims to raise awareness about eating disorders while pressurizing the government to put more funding towards programs to address the issue.
When Dobbe’s daughter, Jamie, was diagnosed with anorexia in 1998, she had to go to Remuda Ranch, a 90 day treatment facility in Arizona to obtain the necessary treatment. “You shouldn’t have to wait in line when your daughter is starving to death,” Dobbe told the Straight outside the Vancouver Art Gallery yesterday during the unveiling of the foundation’s new campaign.
This campaign is part of the efforts to open the first nonprofit residential facility in Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast. The facility would be the first for adolescents suffering from eating disorder in Canada. Through fundraising and donations made by companies such as Dove Foundation, Scotiabank, BMO, and pro bono work from DDB Canada, Looking Glass aims to open its doors by next summer, but with an additional $4 million needed to complete the project, Dobbe hopes that this campaign will help them gain the exposure they need to make that a reality.
The foundation enlisted the help of DDB Canada in 2007 and writer Jeff Galbraith and art director Daryl Gardiner helped create a poignant and powerful message about the disease, on display yesterday outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. Pieces from the exhibit included a spool of thread placed on the podium, with a message stating that a young girl with anorexia tried to use the thread to sew her mouth shut to refrain from eating.
Gallbraith jumped at the chance to be part of the project, having seen first-hand what the disorders can do to a loved one. “People are so quick to trivialize eating disorders,” he told the Straight. “We want to shatter those perceptions through this campaign.”
For more information on eating disorders, visit the National Eating Disorder Information Centre website.
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Blog - Quickies Archive
It's also important to realize that many people with eating disorders also have ADHD. The may be self medicating their ADHD via food and if they happen to have ADHD and it's not treated, it will be harder to treat the eating disorder.
In one study 26.7 % of the severely obese women in the study had ADHD, more than 5 times larger then the regular population.
http://adultaddstrengths.com/2005/05/25/attention-deficit-disorder-and-obesity-link-from-canadian-study/
Here's a good overview of the link between ADHD and eating disorders
www.add.org/articles/eatingdisorders.html
Drs. Joseph Biederman and Craig B. H. Surman did a study on girls with ADHD.
Their studies showed that girls with ADHD are more likely to suffer major depression and eating disorders that non-ADHD girls. Girls who have both ADHD and eating disorders were also more at risk for having significantly higher rates of major depression, anxiety disorders, and disruptive behavior disorder. Further, those with both ADHD and major depression had an earlier onset of the major depression and a higher rate of suicide than the control (non-ADHD) group.
Here's some stats from that study.
* Girls with ADHD were 3.6 times more likely to develop an eating disorder, defined as either anorexia or bulimia nervosa.
* At the 5-year follow-up, 16% of the girls with ADHD (20 girls) and 5% of the controls (5 girls) developed an eating disorder.
* Girls with ADHD were 5.6 times more likely to develop bulimia and 2.7 times more likely to develop anorexia nervosa.
* In a longitudinal study of 140 girls with ADHD and 122 girls without ADHD, girls with ADHD were 5.4 times more likely to develop major depression than girls without ADHD.
* Major depression developed on average at age 17 years and lasted twice as long in the girls with ADHD vs controls (3 years vs 1.3 years).
* Parents with a history of major depression and girls with a history of prior mania predicted depression among the ADHD girls studied.
www.healthcentral.com/adhd/c/57718/20625/girls-adhd-watch
Pete Quily
Adult ADD Coach
Blog: www.adultaddstrengths.com
Web: www.addcoach4u.com