Zillie L. Frattarox Ph.D.
Eating Mindfully
Eating Disorders
Eating Disorders in Gender-Expansive Individuals
A new study focuses on a group too often left out of research.
Posted May 04, 2021
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Reviewed by Abigail Fagan
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THE BASICS
What Are Eating Disorders?
Find a therapist to heal from an eating disorder
Eating disorder research—and the medical literature itself—has long been limited by a myopic focus on thin, young, cisgendered women. This narrow perspective excludes marginalized groups, such as Black women, from research, leaving us with no true empirical data on how these groups are impacted by eating disorders and gender-expansive individuals.
A recent study by Nagata et al (2020) was one of the first to evaluate eating disorders in gender-expansive populations. The researchers define this group as those who have "a clear eating disorder or persistent self-referential motor disorder". The authors describe this population as well-represented by "nondominational gender" (NG) people, who don't have a restricted, stereotypical sense of what their gender identity should be.
The researchers report that 17 of 60 NG participants reported symptoms of an eating disorder as defined by the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q). Some expressed a desire to never eat food that they find disgusting, but were too afraid to admit a negative feeling about food handling. Other participants reported disrupting a meal for food handling or skipping portions. While 3 of 5 NG participants reported disrupting a meal as frequently as possible, the third reported an increase in stopping eating altogether. A total of 37 out of 60 NG participants reported mask-less food handling as a significant barrier to full recovery.
"We found that the majority of participants reported a decrease in eating behaviors and an increase in positive mood after following a structured eating plan," the authors note. "This is an important finding in terms of our ability to encourage people to get educated on eating disorders in a safe way."
Eating behavior screening
Eating behavior screening (EAPD) is a type of screening that aims to improve an eating disorder. EAPDs use a food-injection device called a nasograbble assessment (NIG) to measure habitual eating patterns.
The EAPD-Q is a screening tool for eating disorders. It asks participants to eat a modified diet with any foods they are allowed to eat, even if they are allowed to feel full. This can be a challenging task for trained staff, who have to focus on eating well and not binge eating.
Eating behavior screening can begin with a simple questionnaire. An expert will decide if you meet the criteria for EAPD or not. If you do not meet the criteria and are later diagnosed with an eating disorder, your treatment plan would be limited to either getting professional help to get trained in EAPD or getting some kind of help with the very common (but least in the UK) cognitive-behavioral eating disorder, PD.
Eating behavior screening can start with short- or long-term diets. The long-term goal, whenever possible, is to get the complete eating plan, including light snacks and special meals, as well as consciously changing how you prepare and eat. This is not a comprehensive treatment and should not be used for coping with health issues and other chronic diseases.
If you are interested in screening for eating disorders, please see this informative website.
https://menadewith.