Photo: Courtesy of Frank Bruni

Amidst a childhood of overeating -- we're talking tantrum-throwing if he didn't get that third burger he wanted -- Frank Bruni, 44, went on his first diet at age 8, beginning a what would become a decades-long struggle of weight-loss and weight gain. "I was born with just an enormous appetite, clearly," says Bruni. "Going on the Atkins Diet at 8, that was a measure of how self-conscious I'd become about my weight, just how much teasing I'd been exposed to and just how intensely eager I was, even at that young age, to do something about it. And so I kind of stepped on that whole binge-purge cycle at an early age."

After reaching his largest size -- upwards of 270 pounds (Bruni, then as now, didn't measure his size by the scales) and a 42-inch waist -- a breakdown helped him confront his compulsive eating habits. A new job with hours he could control allowed him to stress less and exercise more. Bruni, who now wears a size 34, says he's content with the way he's managing his eating. Instead of bingeing three to four nights a week like he did in the past, Bruni has an episode once every three or four weeks, at most.

In an interview with That's Fit, he shares how he quit the yo-yo dieting cycle, what his fitness routine entails and how others can begin to address their issues with food.

That's Fit: How did you break your pattern of yo-yo dieting?

Frank Bruni: A couple of things happened. I hit rock bottom in terms of I just so hated the way I looked and I felt so disgusted by it, there was a certain point where I was like, "I just can't put up with this anymore. It just makes me too sad and ashamed." At that time, I had just changed jobs, so I had less stress because I had more control over my hours. I was able to commit to 90 minutes to two hours of exercise every day -- and that's what I would do. I mean hard exercise. After that, when I was in more of a weight-maintenance mode, I happened to reassigned to Italy and the natural portion control and the emphasis on food quality over quantity that you find in Italy was like the perfect recipe to help me maintain the weight loss.

Over the past few years, the fashion industry has received a fair amount of criticism for using too many skeleton-thin models. And it seems they're paying attention and trying to 'beef-up' -- well, if the recent New York Fashion week is any indication anyway. Nian Fish, the chair of fashion designers health initiative is insisting that all models used in the various shows were size 2 or 4 -- not 0 or 00, as was the previous standard. "I think there's progress," says Fish, "The girls are still slim. We didn't want them not to be slim. We wanted a projection of health"

Still, the fashion industry is a long way from embracing curves. "Thin is going to be the ruling look -- until someone says, 'I want voluptuous,'" said Fish. "I don't know if that ever is going to come back." And in London, plans to make models pass a health examination were dropped because of not enough international support.

Your thoughts?

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Aaron Ferguson, a former accountant for Rachael Ray's TV cooking show, has filed a $1 million lawsuit after being fired. Ferguson has battled anorexia for about six years. While employed on Rachael Ray's show, Ferguson says others treated him with hostility because of his condition. He says that his supervisor made "vile, discriminatory, and hurtful comments."

Ferguson, who began working for CBS Television Distributions, Inc. in July 2007, says that he complained about the discriminatory language regarding people with anorexia, but the situation didn't improve. He was fired in October 2007. Ferguson feels he was terminated because he complained about wrongful treatment. Rachael Ray is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

If you know someone who is battling anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorder, they need your support and understanding. HelpGuide has some information on eating disorders and how to best support loved ones who are battling the condition.

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Shows like Desperate Housewives and Sex and the City have given the world a new way to look at aging. Turning 40 or 50 no longer necessarily means a party with an "Over the Hill" theme -- older men and women can be just as sexy as their much-younger counterparts. And that's a good thing. Right?

Well, yes and no. It's fantastic that we are shedding our stereotypes regarding middle-age, for men as well as for women. Most men would agree that Halle Berry and Heather Locklear are just as sexy as any 20-year-old actress, and men over 40 include George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Pierce Brosnan -- 'nuf said.

However, eating disorders for adult women are on the rise. We see celebrities like Teri Hatcher, Demi Moore, and Kim Cattrall and while we know that the way they look simply isn't attainable for everyone, it doesn't mean many women don't try by resorting to anorexia or bulimia. Check out our gallery of super sexy celebrities who've celebrated 40 or more birthdays, but use these as inspiration, not for comparison. And, head over to AOL Body to see who they think is over 40 and still smokin' hot!

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Anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders where people use unnatural methods to get or stay thin. But there's another category of eating problems; disordered eating is a term that describes any number of unhealthy eating patterns. While disordered eating is likely not as detrimental to health as anorexia or bulimia, unhealthy eating patterns can affect overall health in a number of ways. And disordered eating is more common than you may think. SELF Magazine recently conducted a reader survey and found that 65% of respondents have an unhealthy relationship with food.

So what is disordered eating exactly? The definitions are vague, but any unnatural method of eating could be lumped into the disordered eating category. For example, cutting out whole food types in an effort to control weight (such as shunning all carbs), emotional eating or turning to food for comfort, and following restrictive diets beyond what is medically necessary.

Take SELF magazine's quiz to see if you're at risk for disordered eating.

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A recent study found that girls who ate with their families at least five times per week were less likely to participate in weight control behaviors -- taking laxatives, diet pills, or forcing themselves to vomit -- that might lead to eating disorders. Other less extreme behaviors, like fasting and smoking to lose weight were unaffected by family meal time. In addition, boys in the study who ate meals with their families were actually more at risk of developing unhealthy weight control habits, surprisingly.

Researchers say that this suggests that while family meal time can benefit teens, what happens at that table has an impact on teens as well. Juggling schedules to make time for eating together, creating healthy, nutritious dishes, and having positive interactions at the table are all components of healthy family meals.

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A new study says that teenage boys in the U.S. are increasingly seeing eating disorders, and that the rate of those problems rose greatly between the years of 1995 and 2005.

Eating disorders, which are generally connected in the media to teenage girls (not boys), involve all forms of weight control. These include dieting, diet product use, purging, exercise and vigorous exercise. Are guys working out a little too much or are they not eating enough?

The study, which looked at CDC data from that 10-year period, found that increased weight control behavior in teen males suggested growing social pressure for unrealistic body expectations -- the same reason given in recent years for female eating disorders.

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Hopefully we all know celebrities don't represent reality as the rest of us know it. The famous people we see have been made up, personal trained, coiffed, dressed, and soft-lit into the closest they can come to perfection, and of course they represent a very small and genetically blessed segment of the population. So sometimes it's necessary to do a little reality check, just to remind ourselves that what we see isn't what we are supposed to be.

Cheers to America Ferrara for giving us a vocabulary reality check. Right now the media is labeling her with what I call 'Kate Winslet Syndrome': when a svelte, normal-looking celeb is called "curvy" because she is shapelier than the stick figures in Hollywood. Pencils are "curvy" next to some of those ladies. America says, "I think it's hilarious when people call Jessica Alba or Eva Longoria curvy. Come on – they're not curvy. I'm curvy!" Props to her also for refusing to starve for her art. Don't shrink America!

As far as reality, supermodel Eva Herzigova has given us a mixed bag. Four months postpartum she's back to her pre-baby size, and says, "Nature has a way of taking care of things. If you have a certain figure you'll go back to it. Breast feed and don't worry about it." 'Kay, we like the very un-model-like lack of weight concern, but nature ain't so kind to everybody Eva.

While the Spice Girls reunion might be one of the first signs of the apocalypse, the press has certainly decided they haven't aged gracefully. Photos of Sporty and Posh with less-than-flawless complexions got media jeers, and Ginger's loose belly skin was also ridiculed. (Oooh, loose stomach skin. Big problem.) Now the SGs are being mocked for looking, um, ageless in their new video. So yeah, we know kind lighting and some digital magic probably made the transformation possible, but I have to say, is bad skin and some belly baggage so reprehensible? I think the scorn probably does more to encourage the 'perfection by any means' mentality than make it okay for famous people to have flaws. Sporty even said she almost refused the reunion for fear her old eating disorders would resurface. So let's stop bagging on the ladies for having imperfections and get back to trashing the crappy music.

And finally, here's a reality check on behalf of the men: While I like Matthew McConaughey's chest as much as the next person, I've seen enough shirtless beach photos of him. Really. People does a 'Guess the chest' quiz and I know the answer because I'd probably recognize MM's pecs faster than I'd peg a photo of the Grand Canyon. And of course, we see sandy, wind-blown MM all the time because that body isn't typical. Reality might bite, but there you have it.

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If you knew a girl or boy who seemed thin all through those early school years only to have an "official" eating disorder diagnosis later in life, did you know that an "early investment" may have pulled the trigger.

In other words, kids in those early years, for whatever reasons, may emotionally invest their feeling in wanting to "look thin." The usual suspects may be there: skinny teenage idols, magazines with razor-thin women in them and others.

We all know how impressionable most kids during those early years and such, as girls as young as nine or 10 are interested in finding some kind of role model -- who is generally very thin and energetic (like many girls want to be). Have you seen these signs with your daughter? If so, read on here.

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In most cases getting pregnant is beneficial for eating disorders, with many commonly going into remission while the baby is growing. But binge eating, one of the most common eating disorders, has been found to actually get worse for some women during pregnancy -- especially for those with lower incomes.

This data comes from an enormous study of over 41,000 women in Norway, so the results are pretty scary. This urges all doctors and other pregnancy specialists to be aware of these risks when treating their patients, and the next step for researchers is to take a look at how these issues may affect the babies born to women with pregnancy-related binging disorders.

Have you experienced anything like this either yourself, or with a friend/someone in your family?

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I remember thinking the summer before I started 7th grade that I needed to exercise so I could look my best as I started a new phase in my life -- Junior High (Also called middle school.) At 11 years old, where did I get the idea that I had to exercise to look good? I've never been overweight and I certainly wasn't then, and though I have a healthy body image today, I wonder what lead to such thoughts.

It's this kind of thinking that parents worry about in their own kids. How can you work on creating a healthy body image in your pre-teens? This post of Dr. Sanjay Gupta's blog has some suggestions:

• Dig deeper; If they say something that lead you to believe they have an unhealthy body image, find out why they would say something like that, what they think of their bodies and what they don't like about themselves
• Expose your children to role models of many shapes and sizes
• Don't emphasize looks -- talk about what's on the inside (this is particularly important for fathers and daughters)
• Watch your mouth. Don't talk about your own body issues. I suspect my own came from my mother, who tried for years to lose the weight she gained when she quit smoking.
  

How do you deal with insecurities in your children?

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I don't belong to a gym, nor do I watch the Food Network, but according to this story, the two are increasingly going hand in hand. Watching food TV, while working out? I never would have imagined, nor do I really see any danger in it, but apparently it has some concerned.

Some health experts say the trend can be an indication of a food obsessed nation, or more alarmingly, eating disorders. Others say that the trend is just annoying and may even prevent them from meeting their fitness goals. Those who do it claim that they like the 30-minutes shows, or that the Food Network helps them learn how to cook in a healthier way. And some say they do it as motivation -- if they burn those calories now, they'll be able to indulge later on.

Do you work out in a gym? If so, what do you think?

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So what's your opinion on Alli? After all the hype leading up to it people have finally had a chance to buy it and try it for themselves -- nasty side-effects and all. But because it's over-the-counter and anybody can buy it, does that lead to a greater chance that people will abuse it? A psychologist from the St Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute thinks so, and he thinks the greatest danger is for people who suffer from eating disorders. Although Alli has been proven safe for those who are overweight, it may not be for people who do not need to lose weight or are already underweight. And since it's so readily available it may be particularly attractive to people with eating disorders -- even the side-effects (like diarrhea) may not deter them as they may be used to dealing with them already.

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Most of us could use more fitness in our lives, but for some people, they could actually use less. A study shows that among athletes, those who visit the gym regularly might be prone to eating disorders.

Perhaps you've known or gone to the same gym with someone who fits the profile of a fitness addict -- I know I have. They're the people (all women in my experience) who spend several hours a day at the gym, and have the bodies to prove it. But there is such a thing as working out too much.

However, I can't say I'm at a risk of working out too much. I try to go to the gym 5 times a week but I never go for longer than an hour and a half -- any more would disrupt my life too much, in the sense that I wouldn't have any time for work, family or housework. What about you?

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Anorexia is generally thought of as a teenager's and young person's disease, but more and more middle-aged and older adults are being diagnosed and treated for the disease every day. Increasingly women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and even older are seeking treatment for anorexia and have often been dealing with the disorder for years. The reasons behind this sudden increase in older patients could be due to a variety of causes, including increased public awareness, increased pressure on women to be thinner, and aging baby boomers who may have been living with the disease since they were younger.

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