Binge Eating Disorder and Body Uneasiness

Debate continues regarding the nosological status of binge eating disorder (BED) and the specific diagnostic criteria, including whether, like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, it should be characterized by body image disturbances in addition to abnormal eating behaviour. The aims of this article are: a) to concisely review the main points of the literature that has developed on diagnosis and treatment (especially pharmacological) of BED and b) to present the results of an original research on body image in obese patients with BED. The study was aimed to verify the following hypothesis: in persons with obesity, BED is associated with greater body uneasiness independently of some possible modulating factors. We studied a clinical sample of 159 (89 females and 70 males) adult obese patients who fulfilled DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for BED matched to 159 non-BED obese patients for gender, ethnicity, BMI class, age, weight, stature, onset age of obesity, education level, and marital status. We used the Body Uneasiness Test (BUT), a valuable multidimensional tool for the clinical assessment of body uneasiness in subjects suffering from eating disorders and/or obesity. Obese patients with BED reported higher scores than non-BED patients in the General Severity Index (BUT-A GSI) and in every BUT-A subscale. All differences were statistically significant in both sexes. As expected women obtained higher scores than men. According to some other studies, our findings suggest that a negative body image should be included among diagnostic criteria for BED. Consequently, treatment should be focused not simply on eating behaviour and outcome studies should evaluate changes of body image as well

TM Electromagnetic Scattering from PEC Polygonal Cross-Section Cylinders: A New Analytical Approach for the Efficient Evaluation of Improper Integrals Involving Oscillating and Slowly Decaying Functions

The analysis of the TM electromagnetic scattering from perfectly electrically conducting polygonal cross-section cylinders is successfully carried out by means of an electric field integral equation formulation in the spectral domain and the method of analytical preconditioning which leads to a matrix equation at which Fredholm's theory can be applied. Hence, the convergence of the discretization scheme is guaranteed. Unfortunately, the matrix coefficients are improper integrals involving oscillating and, in the worst cases, slowly decaying functions. Moreover, the classical analytical asymptotic acceleration technique leads to faster decaying integrands without overcoming the most important problem of their oscillating nature. Thus, the computation time rapidly increases as higher is the accuracy required for the solution. The aim of this paper is to show a new analytical technique for the efficient evaluation of such kind of integrals even when high accuracy is required for the solution

Prevenire i disturbi dell’alimentazione in adolescenza: un’impresa possibile?

Obiettivo: a) Studio osservazionale di atteggiamenti alimentari, disagio relativo all’immagine del corpo e comportamenti pericolosi per la salute in una popolazione di adolescenti; b) Studio sperimentale degli effetti di un intervento breve di promozione della salute. Metodologia: L’indagine è stata condotta su una popolazione di adolescenti, al secondo anno di scuola media superiore, in tre fasi: 1° screening (campione totale); intervento breve di promozione della salute (sottogruppo sperimentale); 2° screening, dopo 12 mesi (campione totale). Strumenti: questionario generale, Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), Body Uneasiness Test (BUT), test di soddisfazione. Risultati: Il campione finale era costituito da 615 soggetti (314 F, femmine), età media 16,3 ± 1,18 anni. Al 1° screening sono risultati sovrappeso/obesi il 13% dei maschi e il 6% delle femmine; sottopeso, l’8% dei maschi e il 14% delle femmine. Percentuali elevate di BUT (F 26%; M 9%) ed EAT (F 16%; M 5%) high-scorers (≥ cutoff) hanno segnalato un diffuso disagio per l’aspetto fisico e frequenti comportamenti alimentari disfunzionali. Molti studenti hanno riferito comportamenti rischiosi per la salute (alcol, tabacco, droghe). Al follow-up, non sono emerse differenze significative tra i due gruppi salvo una maggior acquisizione di comportamenti dannosi nel gruppo di controllo. Conclusioni: L’intervento non sembra aver determinato nel gruppo sperimentale modificazioni significative del disagio del corpo e degli atteggiamenti alimentari, mentre potrebbe aver prodotto qualche effetto positivo rispetto ad alcuni comportamenti dannosi