Sec. 3. Findings
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The Congress finds the following: Risk of death among individuals with anorexia nervosa is 18 times greater than their same age peers without anorexia. It is estimated that at least one person dies every 62 minutes from an eating disorder; at least 23 persons each day. Health consequences such as osteoporosis (brittle bones), gastrointestinal complications, cardiac, and dental problems are significant health and financial burdens throughout life. At lowest estimate, 14.5 million Americans suffer from eating disorders.
One percent of adolescent boys and two percent of adolescent girls suffer from eating disorders; eating disorders account for at least four percent of all childhood hospitalizations. Eating disorders are treatable biopsychosocial illnesses. There is a high rate of co-morbidity with other illnesses such as depression, substance abuse, or anxiety disorders. Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by self-starvation, weight loss, fear of gaining weight and disturbances in the way in which one’s body weight or shape is experienced (body image disturbance).
Anorexia nervosa is associated with serious health consequences including heart failure, kidney failure, osteoporosis, and death. People who suffer anorexia nervosa are 57 times more likely to die of suicide than their peers. Current estimates of the lifetime prevalence of bulimia nervosa are between 0.9 and 1.5 percent among women and between 0.1 and 0.5 percent among men. Bulimia nervosa is associated with serious health consequences, including cardiac, gastrointestinal, and dental problems including irregular heartbeats, gastric rupture, peptic ulcer, tooth decay, and death.
Binge eating disorder is characterized by frequent episodes of uncontrolled overeating. Binge eating disorder is common: at lowest estimate, 3.5 percent of American women and 2.0 percent of American men will suffer from this disorder in their lifetime. Binge eating is often associated with obesity, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, elevated triglyceride levels, increased risk of bowel, breast and reproductive cancers, increased risk of diabetes, and increased risk of arthritic damage to the joints.
Many suffer from some, but not all, of the symptoms of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge eating disorder, which is referred to as other specified feeding or eating disorder (OSFED). Between 4 percent and 20 percent of young women practice unhealthy patterns of dieting, purging, and binge eating. Eating disorders are more common in women, but they do occur in men. Rates of binge eating disorder are similar in females and males. Academic evidence has demonstrated a connection between the use of very thin models in advertising and consumer attitudes toward a brand based on such advertising, as well as a material influence of the use of such models on consumer purchase intent, conduct, and reliance.
Eating disorders appear across all age groups, races, ethnicities and socioeconomic groups in the United States and are associated with substantial psychological problems, including depression, substance abuse, and suicide. For children 12 years of age and younger, hospitalizations for eating disorders increased by 119 percent between 1999 and 2006.