EUROPEAN EATING COUNCIL DISORDERS

AUTUMN 1995NEWSLETTER

Hello everyone well I'm afraid the plan to get these newsletters out bi-annually is going a bit astray so this is probably nearer a Winter newsletter by the time you get it. Anyway now that we've finally got this edition together there is lots to tell. This edition contains the usual features and some special reports including:-

If there are any developments in eating disorders in your area that you would like other ECED members to know about please send us the information for the next newsletter due out in Spring. This is to be my penultimate newsletter as editor as I am hopefully moving on next September to a new career in law. The ECED are looking for a new editor for 1996 so if you are interested in taking on the task please contact me in London. I would be happy to stay on and co-edit the next issue with a new editor while they get used to the task.

Bridget Dolan

ECED GENERAL MEETING

ITALY 1997

The delegates at Dublin voted for the next ECED General Meeting to be held in Padova, Italy organised by Prof. Paolo Santonastaso, Dr. A Favaro and Dr. Riccardo Dalle Grave. We have been promised an impressive venue in a beautiful old monastery, with good food, wine and sunshine. Oh, and a stimulating academic programme too !! The date of the meeting is not yet finalised, however it is likely to be in the Autumn and scheduled so that it is not within a month of the World Congress of the International College of Psychosomatic Medicine in Cairns Australia which is in early September.

Further information and preliminary registration forms will be sent out with the next newsletter. Or from May 1996 you can get more detail from the ECED in London.

ECED, Dept Mental Health Science, St. George's Medical School, London, SW17 0RE.

http://psyctc.sghms.ac.uk/eat_d/eced/eced.htm

NEWS BULLETIN FROM AROUND THE ECED

NETHERLANDS

Congratulations go to Dr. Monique Smeets who has successfully completed her doctoral dissertation at the University of Utrecht. The thesis is entitled "Body Size Estimation Research in Anorexia Nervosa: Breaking the Deadlock". She will be continuing her research in the USA at the Dept. of Psychology, Harvard University next year with a grant funded by the Neils Stensen Foundation. You can contact Dr. Smeets through Dept. Psychonomics, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. Email: smeets@fsw.ruu.nl From January her address will be Dept Psychology, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Email: monique@wjh.harvard.edu

GERMANY

The 16th forum of the German multi-centre study on eating disorders took place in Bad Oeyenhausen in May 1995. At present 750 patients are included in the investigation and the work continues. The follow-up phase of the study is being planned following the model of the NIMH study introduced by Dr. Tracy Shea (from Brown University, Providence, USA) who visited Stuttgart in January this year.

More information on the German multi-centre study can be obtained from the co-ordinators at Centre for Psychotherapy Research, Christian-Belser straße, 79a, D-70597 Stuttgart, Germany. Email: fost@psyres-stuttgart.de

NORWAY

The Norwegian government have recognised the invaluable work of Runi Børresen Gresko in the prevention of eating disorders in Norway. On 19th October she was awarded the National Karl Evang Prize for outstanding work in health information by the Director General of the National Board of Health. The prize is the most prestigious offered in Norway for Health Information and is usually won by health professionals. Runi is the first person from the school and education system to be given the award of 35,000 Norwegian kr.

TRANS-EUROPEAN RESEARCH COLLABORATION

The COST European research programme on "Psychotherapeutic Treatment of Eating Disorders" continues to develop. A meeting was held in Madrid in March 1995 to set up a core battery of instruments for communal use by programme participants. In April 1995 the third meeting of the management committee of the programme was held in London and later in the year Stuttgart hosted the third workshop in the framework with representatives of 14 countries who met in order to finalise the core battery, translate it into nine languages and agree rules for standardised application.

Further information on the COST programme is available from:

Dr Janet Treasure, COST Vice Chairperson, Institute of Psychiatry, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AZ, UK.

Please send us any news or bulletin items for inclusion in the next ECED Newsletter

and we can share your information with 500 eating disorder workers at one time

AUTHORS REQUIRED

CALL FOR PAPERS

EATING DISORDERS:

The Journal of Treatment & Prevention

Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention will be starting an ongoing series under the editorship of Dr, Melanie Katzman focusing on the contributions made by professionals outside the mental health fields to the understanding of body image disturbance, appearance controls, self-starvation and eating disorders. Contributions by anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, economists etc. are encouraged.

If you, or one of your colleagues, wish to publish in the journal you are invited to send three copies of the manuscript (prepared according to American Psychological Association's publication guidelines) to: -

Dr. Melanie Katzman,

10 Birchwood Drive,

London, NW8 7NB, UK.

Fax: +44 (0)171 435 0375

EATING DISORDERS BOOK PROPOSALS

ATHLONE PRESS

Athlone Press is keen to extend its publishing programme in the area of eating disorders. Its list so far includes two titles by ECED members:

Athlone is particularly interested in receiving proposals for books addressed to the medical and paramedical markets, and these should be sent to the Chairman:-

Mr. Brian Southam,

Athlone Press,

1 Park Drive,

London NW11 7SG.

Tel: +44 (0) 181 458 0888

Fax: +44 (0) 181 201 8115

NEW ADDRESSES FOR MEMBERS

GLENN WALLER

From January 1996 Glenn Waller will be taking up a new post as Reader in Psychology and can be contacted at:-

Department of Psychology

Royal Holloway and Bedford New College,

Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK

Tel: +44(0)1 784 443 526

MONIQUE SMEETS

From January 1996 Monique Smeets will be taking up a postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University and can be contacted at:-

Dept Psychology, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge,

MA 02138, USA

Email: monique@wjh.harvard.edu

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION CONSIDERS EATING DISORDERS

Ms. Eluned Morgan (Member of European Parliament) contacted the ECED last March asking for information about eating disorders in Europe. She was concerned about the lack of pan-European research into eating disorders and wanted to raise their profile at a European level.

Ms Morgan MEP put the following questions to the plenary session of the European Parliament.

"In view of the increasing incidence and prevalence of eating disorders throughout the European Community, how does the Commission propose to act in this area? How does the Commission plan to institute or strengthen existing codes of practice which govern diet products and their advertising ?"

The response from the Commission is reproduced in full and verbatim below:-

"Community policies and activities have always aimed at ensuring an adequate, varied and safe supply of food. They have also aimed at providing information to consumers to enable them to make informed choices for their food consumption.

The reports of the scientific committee for food form the basis of Community legislation in the area of foodstuffs. A copy of a recent report, on energy and nutrient intake, is sent directly to the Honourable Member and Secretariat general of the Parliament.

Nutritional aspects are also important parts of specific actions such as the programme Europe against cancer. The commission envisages, in the proposed third action plan on cancer (1995-1999), to continue the "prospective investigation on cancer, nutrition and health" (EPIC network) which includes a monitoring of 350000 people from seven European countries over a ten year period. The correlation between dietary habits and lifestyle should permit conclusions which will also contribute to the provision of nutritional recommendations for consumers. the results of these epidemiological studies will also produce information of relevance to cardiovascular diseases.

Further the Commission included the subject of nutrition in its recent Communication and proposal for Parliament and Council decision adopting a programme of Community action on health promotion, information, education and training within the framework for action in the field of public health.

The Honourable Member will be aware of the existence of Council Directive 89/398/EEC of 3 May 1989 relating to foods for particular nutritional issues (diet foods). Based on this Directive the Commission has adopted a directive on infant formulae and follow-on formulae, is about to adopt a directive on cereal based foods and baby foods intended for infants and young children and is at an advanced stage of elaborating a directive on foods intended for energy restricted diets and weight control"

At first I thought they had sent the transcript of the response to the wrong question !! However it seems that the European Commission either do not understand basic facts about eating disorders or they have no view or policy on the issue. If you are concerned about the European Commission's apparent ignorance or unconcern about eating disorders you can contact you own MEP (or Ms Morgan MEP) via The European Parliament, 97-113 Rue Belliard, 1047 Brussels, Belgium.

% DISCOUNTED JOURNALS %

The ECED have negotiated that all members can have reduced subscriptions on the two Wiley Journals (The International Journal of Eating Disorders and the European Eating Disorders Review) and on the Eating Disorders Review published by Gurze books in the USA. Unfortunately Bruner Mazel the publisher of Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention will not be continuing their ECED discount rate next year.

EATING DISORDERS REVIEW

Gurze Books are offering ECED members a 20% discount on the next volume (1996) of Eating Disorders Review. This is a newsletter type review edited by Joel Yager M.D. which includes summaries of recent research reports. The individual rate for ECED members will be $76.80 instead of the regular price of $96.00. Subscriptions for this newsletter can be placed with credit card or by money order. You must mention the ECED discount when applying. Contact Leigh Cohn:-

Gurze Books,

P.O.Box 2238,

Carlsbad, CA 92018.

Fax: +619 434 5476

Email: gurze@aol.com.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EATING DISORDERS

Wiley are offering a $50 discount on the personal subscription rate for ECED members This is almost a 30% reduction making the individual rate $125. To qualify for the discount your order must be sent to Tracy Clayton at the Wiley address below.

EUROPEAN EATING

DISORDERS REVIEW

Wiley are also continuing with an 11% discount on the European Eating Disorders Review for next year (1996) Vol 4. They are offering ECED members individual subscriptions at £40.00 or $62.00 instead of the usual price of £45.00 or $70.00. Again all orders must be sent to Tracy Clayton at:-

John Wiley and Sons Ltd,

Baffin's Lane,

Chichester,

West Sussex

PO19 1UD, UK.

20%DISCOUNT ON BOOKS

Eurospan (see blue flyer enclosed) and Afterhurst Ltd. (see purple flyer enclosed) are both offering 20% off new and forthcoming titles to ECED members. Between them they have an extensive catalogue of eating disorders works. To qualify for the discounts you must use the special forms enclosed. If you need more forms please contact ECED for further copies.

ECED ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB

http://psyctc.sghms.ac.uk/eat_d/eced/eced.htm

The ECED Newsletter has been mounted on the Internet at the address above along with the aims of the European Council and information about membership. This means people with access to the Internet can see the newsletters from Summer 1993 onwards, a cumulative contents page and (soon) a cumulative index of authors, keywords and words in all its articles. The Word for Windows files are also there so non-members can see the beauty of the Wingdings fonts used to embellish the text!

There have been 498 external visits to the pages since the end of July. Roughly a quarter have come from Britain, a third from or via the States, 14 from Norway, 10 from Sweden, 9 from Italy, 8 from Australia and visits have come from eight other countries to date. In November I posted announcements to the main Net search engines and indices which raised non-local visits to about 40 per week. I have suggested keywords eating disorder (or "eating-disorder" since most indices don't seem to store phrases), anorexia, bulimia, overeating, obesity and body-image. I suspect that the access rate will mount slowly as the pages get to be known and as they perhaps become useful even to members through the cumulative contents and indices. I would appreciate feedback and views on the possibility of having a ECED Listserv, Mailbase or Usenet group (subscription lists allowing everyone on the list to receive anything any other member writes to the list.) I am happy to do the sociopolitical and technological work for that if there is support for the idea.

Chris Evans, 
Senior Lecturer in Psychotherapy, 
St. George's Hospital Medical School,   C.Evans@sghms.ac.uk

FREE BOOKS

The ECED has recently received the following books for review in our newsletter. Rather than send out review copies to people who may not have the time or specific interest to do this we are asking for reviewers to volunteer. In exchange for a short review (between 300-600 words) you can get a free copy of any of the books listed.

If there is a new book you would like to review which is not on the list write to Bridget Dolan at the ECED in London with the publication details and she will request a free review copy for you from the publishers. We are particularly keen to include non-English texts which may not have been noticed by the London steering group. Reviews can be written in the language of the book.

Steinhausen H-C. (Ed) (1995)

Blaise G. (1995)

Levens M. (1995)

Hollander E and Stein D (eds.) (1995)

Boskind-White M. & White W. (1991)

Amer. Psychiatric Assoc. (1993)

FORTHCOMING MEETINGS

If you are involved in organising meetings or conferences related to Eating Disorders in any way you can send information about the meeting to the ECED for inclusion in the next newsletter. We can include both national and international meetings.

SETTING UP SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WITH EATING DISORDERS

A one day workshop on providing secondary services for adults with eating disorders

December 8th 1995

Venue: Education Centre, Leicester General Hospital, Leicester, UK

Organisers: Drs. Bob Palmer, Lalitha De Silva & Lorenzo Pieri Fee: £70

Information: Pavilion Publishing, 8, St. George's Place, Brighton, BN1 4ZZ, UK

Tel: +44 (0)1273 623 222; Fax: +44 (0) 1273 625 526

DEVELOPING LOCAL SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WITH EATING DISORDERS

A one day conference for anyone involved in local service provision

January 25th 1996

Venue: Kings Fund Centre, London, UK,

Organisers: Lorraine Bell , Cons. Clinical Psychologist. Fee: £111

Information: Pavilion Publishing, 8, St. George's Place, Brighton, BN1 4ZZ, UK

Tel: +44 (0)1273 623 222; Fax: +44 (0) 1273 625 526

EATING DISORDERS AND RELATED PROBLEMS

A two day practical guide with case material to illustrate principals

March 25th-26th 1996

Venue: St. George's Hospital Medical School, London, UK,

Organisers: Prof. J.Hubert Lacey Fee: £160

Information: Conference Unit, MHS, St. George's Medical School, London SW17 ORE.

Tel: +44 (0)181 725 5534

INTERNATIONAL ADDICTION CONGRESS

The state of addiction in the health care system

May 27th-June 1st 1996

Venue: Baden near Vienna, Austria

Organisers: Prim. Dr. Rudolf Mader Fee: öS 3,400

Information: Anton Proksch-Institute, Mackgasse 7-11, A-1237 Vienna, Austria

Tel: +43 (1)888 25 33 20; Fax: +43 (1) 88 25 33 77

2ND CONFERENCE FOR SOCIO-CULTURAL RESEARCH

International conference on socio-cultural approaches which will honour the centennial of the birth of Piaget and Vygotsky.

September 12-14th, 1996

Venue: Genève, Switzerland.

Organisers: Prof. B. Inhelder

Information: B. Schneuwly, Facultè de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education,

9 Route de Drize, 1227 Carouge, Switzerland

Tel: +41 22 786 37 44; Fax: +41 22 786 4080

Abstracts: Send abstract of 250 words by 31st December 1995

21ST EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON PSYCHOSOMATIC RESEARCH

International multidisciplinary conference including a special section on eating disorders. It was at this meeting in Marburg, 1988 that the idea for the ECED was first proposed.

September 12-14th, 1996

Venue: Bordeaux, France.

Organisers: Prof. Marc Bourgeois

Information: 21st ECPR Congress, 10, rue de Nuits, 33100 Bordeaux, France

Tel: +33 56 32 82 29; Fax: +33 56 32 79 53

Abstracts: Send abstract or symposium title by 15th January 1996

TWO-DAY COURSE ON EATING DISORDERS

The 10th annual multi-disciplinary meeting for training in eating disorders.

September, 1996

Venue: Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK..

Organiser: Dr. J Treasure, Institute of Psychiatry, London SE5 8AF, UK

Information: Mrs. Wilding, Conference Office, Institute of Psychiatry, London, SE5 8AF

Tel: +44 (0)171 919 3170

EATING DISORDERS 1997: THE THIRD LONDON INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

April 15th-17th 1997

Venue: New Connaught Rooms, New Covent Garden, London, UK,

Organisers: Prof. B. Lask & Dr R. Bryant-Waugh

Information: Mark Allen International Conferences, Croxted Mews, 288 Croxted Road,

London SE24. Tel: +44 (0)181 671 7521

14TH WORLD CONGRESS OF PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE

International multidisciplinary conference organised by the International College of Psychosomatic Medicine, will incorporate the Inaugural Pan-Pacific Conference on Eating Disorders.

August 31st - 5th September 1997

Venue: Cairns, Australia.

Organisers: Profs. Don Byrne, Stephen Touyz & Peter Beumont, Dr. Janet Russell

Information: Wyeth Clinical Meetings Service, PO Box 148, Parramatta NSW 2124,

Australia. Tel: +61 2 843 6414; Fax: +61 2 687 2501

That's all for now, I hope you will find this information useful, any feedback would really be appreciated . Please remember we can only produce these newsletters if we have news to share so PLEASE send any news or requests you have to the ECED for the next one by March 1996.

With best wishes,

Bridget Dolan

ECED, Dept. Mental Health Science, St. George's Hospital Medical School, London , SW17 0RE, UK.

http://psyctc.sghms.ac.uk/eat_d/eced/eced.htm