Eating Disorders

...ba href=/eating disorder/a/b.

If you want to be healthy, eat a variety of foods, stop when you aren't hungry anymore, lay off junk foods (including anything you can find in a vending machine) and drink alcohol in moderation.

Avoid frozen foods and try your hand at cooking.

If you want to step it up a notch, use organic ingredients and don't buy anything made from concentrate.

Drink mainly water and avoid caffeinated beverages.

Eating healthily is a much better fix than going on a diet or picking up brand name "health food." Expensive diet foods are merely expensive.

They are frequently frozen, which means you are missing important nutritional elements, ingesting too many preservatives, and probably getting too much sodium.

I am a 21-year-old who is 5'6" and 150 pounds.

For the most part I eat healthily.

I do not get nearly enough exercise and I drink too much caffeine, but any extra pounds I have are not due to my diet and should not be cured that way.

If I wanted to lose weight, I would need to exercise more.

Eating less or "better" (with the exception of my pop addiction) would simply not be a healthy choice.

I don't want to lose weight.

I don't need to lose weight.

If I exercised more, I would hope to gain at least part of my weight back in muscle.

Hearing very thin women talk about their calorie-counting is frustrating.

I am not fat, but I don't look like them.

I want to shake these women and tell them to grow up.

Ladies, if you are 5'5" and weigh 120 pounds or less (or are equivalent...

...ba href=/eating disorder/a/b defined as the "persistent eating of non-nutritive substances," according the Internet site eMedicine.

Individuals with pica have been known to ingest clay, dirt, sand, stones, pebbles, hair, feces, lead, laundry starch, vinyl gloves, pencil erasers and fingernails.

Pica is the most common ba href=/eating disorder/a/b in individuals with developmental disabilities, and sometimes it has life-threatening consequences.

Francis C.

Bruce, who is the group home's registered agent, said Moore's condition was not fully disclosed to the home before his arrival there.

"Nobody mentioned nails or screws, or I would have turned him down," Bruce said.

Also, Bruce said, Moore's mother took him out of the home before he developed his pica-related health problems.

The family's attorney, Gregory L.

Sandler of Norfolk, acknowledged that Price did briefly remove her son from the group home on the Friday before he became ill.

Sandler said the mother described Moore, who was well over 6 feet tall and weighed more than 300 pounds, as a "gentle giant." After a hospital stay, he was sent to the Alpha Community Services home at 949 Sedley Road in Virginia Beach, in part because of his large size and the difficulty his mother had handling him during recovery, Sandler said.

Moore was scheduled to return home after his stay at the group home.

Sandler said the group home was aware of Moore's condition and the house had been made "pica-proof" before Moore arrived.

Reach Jon Frank at (757) ...

...ba href=/eating disorder/a/b section, one on drug and alcoholism and a section on child development." Schmidt also said eighth-graders were taught about birth control with an emphasis on abstinence as the best method to prevent unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

"Parents can review materials if they so choose," Schmidt said.

"If they don't want their children to take the course, they can sign an opt-out form." The Senate bill and state board decision would replace opt-out with an opt-in policy, which means parents would have to sign permission slips for their students to be able to take the sex education class.

Currently most districts in Kansas, including Shawnee Mission and De Soto, have an opt-out policy, which means parents sign permission slips to get their students out of the sex education class if they prefer.

Some viewed the policy change negatively because students with parents who don't communicate with the district or forget to sign won't be able to take the class.

Gamble said the board's decision was roughly the same thing as the bill.

"The bill was a response to a misunderstanding as far as I could tell," she said.

"There was a distinct impression the board had removed sex ed from the curriculum.

We moved it from one location in the accreditation standards into another." The majority on the state board, including John Bacon - whose district includes De Soto - supported the opt-in policy.

Bacon was unavailable for comment.

Four board members including Gam...