Eating Disorders And Self-Injury Linked – Many individuals who struggle with an eating disorder also struggle with injuring themselves, according to a new study. Most of the self-injurious acts are not lethal, and include actions like cutting or burning one’s self.
It also found that in most cases, clinics did not screen for these behaviors in patients with eating disorders. The research was conducted at the Stanford University of School and Medicine. They reviewed records of nearly 1,500 patients between the ages of 10 and 21 who were diagnosed with an eating disorder.
42 percent of them who had documentation were also screened for self-injurious behaviors when they were first seen in the clinic. 41 percent of those individuals admitted that they either cut, or burned themselves on a regular basis.
The study shows that these behaviors may actually be linked. Perhaps the individual acquires the eating disorder because they do not feel that they are looking their best, and then the cutting is a way to deal with the fact that they have an eating disorder and release tension. It is believed that both problems are fueled by an underlying level of anxiety, and that the anxiety can manifest itself in many different ways.
It will be interesting to see further research on the subject. If a solid link between the two issues is found, we can expect to see both of them treated as one issue in the future, when normally they would be looked at as two completely different problems, although they previously may have been considered to be part of a larger, blanketing issue.