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Eating disorders affect men and boys too, here is what it can look like – CTV News

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When Ryan Sheldon told his family he had an eating disorder, they chuckled in confusion. When he brought it up to his doctor, he was told they missed it because the doctor never would have thought he was at risk.

And when he started speaking about his experience publicly, one audience member — also a doctor — stood to say Sheldon had been misdiagnosed because he was neither extremely large nor thin, he said.

Sheldon, 34, who is chair of the ambassador program at the National Eating Disorders Association, has wrestled with problems related to body image since he was eight years-old.

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When those problems developed into a concrete eating disorder, he had trouble identifying it and getting help in part because of the stereotype that eating disorders only happen in teenage girls.

It’s a belief that is harmful and untrue, as around 1 in 3 eating disorders will affect men or boys, said Stuart Murray, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Southern California and director of the Translational Research in Eating Disorders Laboratory.

In the United States alone, 10 million males will be affected by eating disorders at some point in life, according to the National Eating Disorders Association.

As the organization starts its awareness campaign Monday for National Eating Disorder Week, experts share how eating disorders impact men and boys and why they are often left out of the picture.

WHAT AN EATING DISORDER LOOKS LIKE 

When thinking about someone with an eating disorder, many people think of a girl or woman who restricts food, exercises obsessively, or secretively binges and purges.

Men can experience eating disorders in that way, said Dr. Blake Woodside, medical director emeritus for the program for eating disorders at Toronto General Hospital and a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

But men also feel pressure to conform to a few masculine body types that society deems acceptable, such as the muscular superhero and the lanky computer geek, Woodside said.

Some of those ideals encourage men to limit their calorie count, but others do the opposite and encourage excessive workouts, overloading protein and heavily restricting nutrients like fats and carbs, Murray said.

When does an interest in maintaining a certain physique become an eating disorder? It happens when your behavior and interactions start to be ruled by the restrictions you are putting into place for your ideal body, Murray said.

“What should be the yardstick is: Does it impact people’s ability to have a normal and a functioning life?” he said.

WHY THEY ARE HARD TO TREAT 

If men are so impacted by eating disorders, why aren’t we hearing about it? Stigma and exclusion.

Although anorexia nervosa was first identified in both boys and girls in the 19th century, Murray said boys were excluded from the research and the diagnostic criteria.

Until recently, changes in breasts and loss of menstruation were key to diagnosing eating disorders, Murray said. Although the criteria have changed since then, men and boys are still excluded from most research into eating disorders, he added.

That exclusion can often lead to stigma, with men and boys — as well as those around them — not recognizing their behavior or hesitating to get help because they believe it threatens their masculinity to say they may have a disorder disease pigeonholed to women.

To make matters worse, disordered eating behavior in men is often championed in the world of social media, Murray said.

Celebrities and influencers post their excessive workouts, along with shots of their bodies and cheat day meals, which are meant to trick their bodies out of going into starvation mode so they don’t burn muscle, he added.

Without looking at the context of gender, almost every doctor would classify that kind of behavior as bulimia. In men, “we see it as a sort of prosocial way of becoming more muscular,” Murray said.

WHAT WE CAN DO

Many families and family doctors still aren’t familiar with the signs of eating disorders in boys and men, Murray said, so the first place to start is knowing what to look for.

Teen boys are human locusts, who often demolish every bite of food in their path, Woodside said. If you notice someone you care about abruptly changing how much or how publicly they eat, they deserve attention, he said.

If the men or boys in your life are making big changes to the activities and relationships in their lives, it might be time to take a closer look, Woodside added.

From there, there is good news and bad news.

The bad news?

“The eating disorder field has to treat boys and men based on treatment studies that included only females. We have to make this big inference that we are on the mark,” Murray said.

But the good news is that men and boys often do well when they go through treatment for their eating disorders, Woodside said.

At one point, Sheldon had lost his job, his money and his relationships to his eating disorder. It took years of specialized treatment and the help of support groups to get his body and his life back on track.

Now, he says the best way to help men and boys like him get into treatment is to share the often hidden truth: They are not alone.

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Measles case reported locally turns out to be negative: health unit

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NEWS RELEASE
SIMCOE MUSKOKA DISTRICT HEALTH UNIT
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On March 26, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) was notified by Public Health Ontario’s (PHO) laboratory that due to laboratory error, the case of measles that had been lab-confirmed positive on March 12, based on symptoms and a positive urine measles laboratory result by PHO’s laboratory, is in fact negative for the measles virus.

“With this new information of the negative lab result, we believe that that individual was not infected with measles and that there has not been any public exposure to measles resulting from this individual’s illness,” said Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health. “We recognize that notifying the public of what we believed to be a positive measles case in our area created worry, anxiety and disruption for some, and we regret this.

“We do know that, despite best efforts, on rare occasions laboratory errors can occur. We are working closely with the PHO’s laboratory to do all that we can to ensure that such an incident does not occur again.”

Measles is a highly contagious viral infection that spreads very easily through airborne transmission. The measles virus can live in the air or on surfaces for up to two hours.

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Symptoms of measles begin seven to 21 days after exposure and include fever, runny nose, cough, drowsiness, and red eyes. Small white spots appear on the inside of the mouth and throat but are not always present. Three to seven days after symptoms begin, a red, blotchy rash appears on the face and then progresses down the body.

The risk of transmission to those vaccinated with two doses is low, and when it does occur tends to show a reduction in the severity of these symptoms.

“Although we are relieved for the individual involved, and for all Simcoe-Muskoka residents, that this case has now been confirmed as negative, we know that measles is still active in Ontario at this time and the potential remains for new cases to arise, especially given the increase in Ontarians travelling to areas in the world that have higher numbers of measles cases,” said Dr. Gardner. “This is why we continue to advise individuals to keep up to date with their routine immunizations, including measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination.”

The risk of measles is low for people who have been fully immunized with two doses of measles vaccine or those born before 1970; however, many children have been delayed in receiving their routine childhood immunizations and people who have not had two doses of measles vaccine are at higher risk of contracting the disease.

People who do get sick usually recover without treatment, but measles can be more severe for infants, pregnant women, and those with compromised immune systems. Possible complications include middle-ear infections, pneumonia, diarrhea, or encephalitis (swelling of the brain) and occasionally death in the very young. Even individuals who are up to date with the measles vaccine should watch for symptoms of measles for 21 days after exposure.

For more information about measles, please visit smdhu.org or call Health Connection at 705-721-7520 or 1-877-721-7520, Monday to Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to speak with a public health professional.

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Kate Middleton Not Alone. Cancer On Rise For People Under 50, Say Experts

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Kate Middleton revealed on Friday that her cancer was discovered after she received abdominal surgery

London:

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When Catherine, Princess of Wales, revealed she was being treated for cancer last week, part of the shock was that an otherwise healthy 42-year-old has a disease that mostly plagues older people.

However, researchers have been increasingly sounding the alarm that more and more people under 50 are getting cancer — and no one knows why.

Across the world, the rate of under-50s diagnosed with 29 common cancers surged by nearly 80 percent between 1990 and 2019, a large study in BMJ Oncology found last year.

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The researchers predicted the number of new cancer cases among younger adults will rise another 30 percent by the end of this decade, with wealthy countries particularly affected.

The increase in cases — and soaring global population — means that the number of deaths among under 50s from cancer has risen by nearly 28 percent over the last 30 years.

This occurred even as the odds of people of all ages surviving cancer have roughly doubled over the last half century.

Shivan Sivakumar, a cancer researcher at the UK’s University of Birmingham, called it an “epidemic” of young adult cancer.

Since Kate Middleton revealed on Friday that her cancer was discovered after she received abdominal surgery earlier this year, Sivakumar and other doctors have spoken out about the uptick in younger cancer patients they have been seeing at their clinics.

While breast cancer remains the most common for people under 50, the researchers expressed particular concern about the rise of gastrointestinal cancers — such as of the colon, pancreas, liver and oesophagus — in younger adults.

Colon cancer is now the leading cause of cancer deaths in men under 50 in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. For women, it is number two — behind only breast cancer.

One high profile case of colorectal cancer was “Black Panther” actor Chadwick Boseman, who died at the age of 43 in 2020.

Why is this happening?

“We just don’t have the evidence yet” to say exactly what is causing this rise, Sivakumar told AFP, adding it was likely a combination of factors.

Helen Coleman, a cancer epidemiology professor at Queen’s University Belfast who has studied early onset cancer in Northern Ireland, told AFP there were two potential explanations.

One is that people in their 40s were exposed to factors known to cause cancer — such tobacco smoke, alcohol or being obese — at an earlier age than previous generations.

She pointed out that the “obesity epidemic” did not start until the 1980s.

Sivakumar felt that at least part of the puzzle could be explained by obesity.

However, there is “another wave” of under-50 patients who are neither obese nor genetically predisposed still getting cancer, he emphasised, adding that this could not be put down to “statistical chance”.

The other theory, Coleman said, is that “something different” has been going on with her generation.

Fingers have been pointed out a range of possible culprits — including chemicals, new drugs and microplastics — but none have been proven.

Some have suggested that so-called ultra-processed foods could be to blame. “But there’s very little data to back any of that up,” Coleman said.

Another theory is that the food we eat could be changing our gut microbiome.

While there is nothing conclusive yet, Coleman said her own research suggested that cancer causes changes to the microbiome, not the other way around.

Anti-vaxx conspiracy theorists have even tried to blame Covid-19 vaccines.

This is easily disproven, because the rise in young adult cancer has taken place over decades, but the vaccines have only been around for a few years.

What can be done?

To address the rise in younger colorectal cancer, in 2021 the US lowered the recommended age for screening to 45. Other countries have yet to follow suit.

But the researchers hoped that Catherine’s experience would remind people at home that they should consult their doctor if they sense anything is wrong.

“People know their bodies really well,” Sivakumar said.

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“If you really feel that something isn’t right, don’t delay — just get yourself checked out.”

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Almost 3,000 students suspended in Waterloo Region over immunization issues

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Close to 3,000 children attending elementary school across Waterloo Region were suspended from school on Wednesday morning for not having up-to-date immunization records.

The region says Waterloo Public Health suspended 2,969 students under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA).

For several months, the region has been campaigning for people to get their children’s vaccinations up to date, including sending letters home to parents on a couple of occasions, warning that students’ records needed to be up to date or they would be suspended.

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It announced in January that 32,000 students did not have up-to-date records: 22,000 elementary students and 10,000 high school students.


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“We have made remarkable progress from the original 27,567 immunization notices we sent to parents in November and December 2023,” Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, medical officer of health, stated.

“Since that time, we have resolved more than 24,500 outdated vaccination records, providing students with valuable protection against these serious and preventable diseases.”

The high school students still have a few weeks to get their records up to date or else face suspension.

The ISPA requires students to have proof-of-vaccination records for diphtheria, polio, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (chickenpox) and meningitis, which must be on file with public health.

Public health says caregivers whose children are suspended will need to book an appointment at regionofwaterloo.ca/vaccines for clinics, which will be held in Cambridge and Waterloo on weekdays.

“Given the high number of suspensions, it may take several days before you can be seen at an appointment and return your child to school,” a release from the region warns.

“Record submission and questions must be done in person to ensure immediate resolution.”

The last time suspensions over immunizations were issued was in 2019, when 1,032 students were suspended.

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