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Drunkorexia:
Women Trade Meals
For Martinis
(Video)
A
night
out on the town can be fun, but the calories in all those drinks can
add up. Consider the numbers: a glass of white wine contains about 80
calories; 12 ounces of beer about 150 calories; and a Cosmopolitan
comes in at around 180 calories. Many women are making a dangerous
trade off, literally giving up food so they can drink without guilt.
Some
experts now refer to this phenomenon as "Drunkorexia."
One young woman, who didn't want to be identified, explained that "I
know some girls who, they will replace some of their drinks with things
that they think are nutritious like a Bloody Mary, because it has
tomato juice, so they think that it can replace a meal."
Dr. Douglas Bunnell, a specialist in eating disorders, says he is
seeing more women substituting calories from food for ones from alcohol.
Although "Drunkorexia" is not an actual condition, he explained that
"my concern about the drunkorexia phenomenon is that it starts people
on a pattern of disordered eating that push them in the direction of a
formal disorder."
That same young women added "I know some girls who, after drinking that
night, they wouldn't eat the whole day, the whole next day."
Dr. Bunnell believes that the way that women and alcohol are portrayed
in the media isn't helping. "There is a tremendous weight consciousness
out there at the same time you have people drinking, and sort of
encouraged to drink, and marketed to."
Experts also worry about how drinking on an empty stomach could further
impair someone's sense of judgment, and lead to mistakes they'll regret
later.
Lynn Grefe, the CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association,
believes this is a very scary situation. "Not only are they not getting
nutritional value from any food during the day, but then they are
taking in alcohol which is, of course, going to make the mind even
worse."
Many of us count calories during the day, and that's OK. Dr. Bunnell
says it crosses the line "if you are doing mental algebra to compensate
or manage your drinking in a response to your eating. Simply, that sign
is worrisome."
That's because no one should be thinking like this young woman: "Beer
was like, you don't drink beer unless you haven't eaten all day."
Grefe says early treatment is the key to keeping this from becoming a
full fledged disorder.
Source: CMS Broadcasting
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