That's Fit

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.

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!

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.

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.

A new and potential frightening U.S. study just released this week concluded that purging and exercising to stay slim are still all the rage of teenage girls in America. But, increasingly, teenage boys are increasingly joining the club as well.

The preoccupation of staying abnormally thin is just as odd as those teenagers who eat everything in sight and wonder why they're overweight, but in many cases, its the females who follow the slimming down strategy -- not the boys.

In the study, researchers found that between 1995 and 2005, 54 percent of girls dieted, 10 percent used diet products, and eight percent admitted to purging. In addition, 24 percent of boys observed in the study said they dieted. The surprise: that percentage rose every year within the 10-year study period.

Bulimia nervosa, like anorexia nervosa, is an eating disorder that centers around control. One of the most common eating disorders, bulimia is characterized by consuming large amounts of food and then ridding the stomach of its contents by way of vomiting, over-exercising, or use of laxatives.

Eating to excess (called the "binge") is comforting to bulimics. But eating too much causes them to feel out of control. They also feel guilt, shame, and a fear of weight gain which causes them to "purge." This "binge and purge" cycle is extremely dangerous and can lead to serious and long-term health problems, like tooth decay, gum disease, loss of tooth enamel, osteoporosis, kidney damage, heart problems, and even death.

Because bulimia is harder to recognize than anorexia -- the symptoms are more subtle and bulimics are not always thin -- awareness is critical. Please consider these symptoms and physical effects of bulimia.

If you know any people that are abnormally skinny or seem to not ever eat very much, that person could indeed have the condition known as anorexia nervosa. That condition generally results in someone not heeding the call to stay at a minimum weight. They eat less and less until sometimes their health is at high risk (even for death) based on caloric intake decline alone.

If you know someone who may be anorexic, it's probably a great idea to pay attention to the below signs from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and find a way to speak with that person should the below be discovered. Anorexia is no laughing matter -- it is most definitely real.

• Extreme fear of gaining weight.
• Distorted impression of weight and body.
• Excessive weight loss, or being seriously underweight.
• Frequent use of laxatives, diet pills, or diuretics with the goal of losing weight.
• Eating very little food or very few calories.
• Missing periods, low blood pressure, lack of fat on the body, or pale or yellowish skin.
• Depression.

Have fitness questions? Fitz has your answer. Our ThatsFit.com fitness expert -- and now your own virtual personal trainer -- will help you get fit, increase your overall health and do it in a fun way. Drop your questions here in the Comments section below and we'll choose two per week to publish on That's Fit! Learn more about Fitz here.

Q. Hey Fitz. I know I'm a little young, I'm 13 years old. I'm not a weight obsessed person, but I just hate the weight that I'm gaining. I was always the thinnest person in my grade and I didn't have to work to stay trim. I'm 5 foot 6. I love to play basketball, but that's only one season and I don't really practice outside of it. I push myself to run, but it's just not really my thing. How can I get back in shape and lose the extra fat on my tummy? Can you help me out? I would love to be fit again! Thanks, Jessica

A. Hi Jessica. Just received your question yesterday along with about 40 others. Apparently my last column appeared on the AIM Today Welcome Screen and it generated about 95,000 hits. Nice to be able to teach so many people in one day! I chose your question, but if anyone would like to link back, you'll see dozens of other questions from teen readers in your same situation. It left me feeling both concerned and inspired. Concerned because so many teens like yourself are stressed, and unhappy with themselves physically. Inspired, because so many of you are seeking out sound advice on how to properly become more fit.

I was 35 pounds heavier in high school than I have been for the past 14 years. I grew up playing sports and began teaching aerobics at age 15, but I still had issues with my weight. In fact, I ended up dealing with Bulimia (which never lost me a pound by the way -- a foolish answer for anyone!) for several years as a result of my insecurities. It stunk! It was so bad that today I spend oodles of time volunteering with kids your age and younger trying to teach the importance of caring for their health. I never want another child to face: eating disorders, poor self-image, depression and more. We are NOT our bodies! Our bodies are vital to getting us around in this world for the next 80 years, but it does not and should not define who we are!

Fitness is crucial to a long healthy life Jessica, and I want you to focus on that. Focus on being strong, capable, flexible, energetic and vibrant. If you visit any doctors office and read the little pamphlets available, you'll see that almost every ailment out there can be prevented, controlled or cured by a healthy diet and regular exercise. That's what counts! G.E.R.D., Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Diabetes, Cancer, Heart Disease, Osteoporosis, premature death, etc... can be avoided by simply taking care of yourself! Let's start there, with the BIG picture. Look yourself in the mirror each day and convince yourself to pursue a fit lifestyle in order to live well and live long. If you do that, and make good on your pledge...belly fat will never be an issue again.

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.

When you hear the word anorexia or bulimia, do you instantly conjour up images up rail-thin models or somethings similar? The fact is that both of these weight-related (and eating related insofar as bulimia) disorders affect a percentage of the population above and beyond the population segment that jumps to mind pretty fast.

But did you know that there are diabetic bulimics, known as diabulimics? Those suffering from bulimia are generally close to normal weight, but end up expunging much of the food they eat for fear of being overweight. That kind of topsy-turvy world is not a good thing when your system is diabetic.

This discussion over at The Diet Channel provides a very good amount of insight into the condition known as diabulimia with the needed detail regarding insulin needs referenced. In fact, diabulimics actually withhold insulin from their bodies (no injections) as a main piece of that disorder. Read on using this link.

Thandie Newton, the actress who has appeared in Crash, Mission Impossible II, ER and many other productions, has admitted that she battled bulimia in her younger years. Newton, now 34, says her troubles began when she was 14 and training for Ballet Exams. She would eat nothing but cottage cheese, and claims this wouldn't raise suspicion in her family because her mother was in the healthcare industry and only kept healthy food in the house anyway. As she get older, abusive and personally shameful relationships further perpetuated her disorder, and she became obsessed with her weight. And she still has scars on her knuckles from making herself throw up to prove it.

Pictures of Newton over the past few years have depicted a frighteningly-thin woman, but I think she's appeared healthier over the past few years. What do you think?

The common media wisdom has it that only young (as in, teenage) girls have eating disorders. Sure, some in their 20s and so forth develop eating disorders, but how about those in their 30s and 40s?

Are eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia really just diseases that know only young years? Medical experts say that women from their 30s to 50s have been coming in for treatment in recent years. Why the uptick?

Are eating disorders brought on by unrealistic portrayals of skinniness and beauty in advertisements? Some think so, and the skinny-obsessed media has toned back that kind of coverage in recent years, while "fashionable fat" has taken on a new role. But with many celebrities yo-yoing with their weight, it's hard to tell what picture we are to believe.

I've worried about my weight for as long as I can remember. While I was definitely a bit chubby in my early teens, I was always a pretty fit kid before that but even so, I always worried about being too fat. In fact, I've heard a lot of reports that state many girls and boys are concerned their weight and so start to diet at younger and younger ages. These days, most of the attention in the media is about obese children rather than those suffering from anorexia or bulimia.

While there is plenty of attention given to overweight kids, how many programs are there for those with other eating disorders? I tried to look for more information on google, and when I put in the keywords "anorexia rates children united states" most of the headlines I got back were still about obesity. Apparently things are the same in other countries as well, Australia being one example. According to this article, of the programs that do exist in that country for anorexia and bulimia, almost all focus on treating those over the age of 16, when in reality these eating disorders start at much younger ages.

The good news is that they are beginning to address the problem there to try to make people aware that young kids can suffer from eating disorders other than obesity. So, does anyone know of anything similar going on in North America?

Participation in sports during adolescence is supposed to be good for self-confidence but often the opposite happens, sometimes with fatal consequences. What I'm referring to is an article e-mailed to us by one of our readers, Jeremy. It documents a study that explores the prevalence of eating disorders in athletes. Strong, healthy bodies are required of most athletes, but sometimes being lean seems more important than being strong, and in serious athletes -- people who by nature are accustomed to setting their sites high and sacrificing for the ultimate goal -- the desire for the perfect body can lead to cases of anorexia and bulimia.

In fact, the statistics are so alarming that it's being said that among female college athletes, a third of them suffer from some sort of eating disorder. A third. That's truly frightening. What's also scary is that in fit individuals who are already thin, the disorder can sometimes be overlooked because being thin and being highly active are linked.

Read the article and let me know your thoughts.

There appears to be a gap in the health care system (ha! one among many...) when it comes to identifying eating disorders in boys and some ethnic groups. Obviously, boys and some foreign cultures don't display the same behaviors and symptoms as the "white females" the system was designed for, and so these patients inevitably "fall through the cracks." One example is the fact that doctors and clinicians are trained to pay special attention when patients express an interest in being "thin," but most boys will instead say things along the lines of "fit" and "healthy," and those terms don't set off the same alarms.

So it's pretty obvious at this point that some of the training in this area needs closer examination and perhaps even a complete overhaul. As news about the rising obesity epidemic in this country continues, the pressure for our children will only get worse.