CALL TO ACTION!

PASS PARITY NOW!!

Mental Health Parity is on the move. You can help!

Mental health parity is on the move in Congress. There is a good chance that a mental health parity bill will soon pass. The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness under the umbrella of The Eating Disorders Coalition is working to ensure that Congress passes the strongest possible mental health parity bill.

There are two versions in Congress now, one in the House and one in the Senate.  The House bill is excellent and we strongly support its immediate passage without amendment. The Senate bill could be stronger. The EDC and The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness support both the House and Senate bills.

We need your help TODAY! Members of Congress want to hear from YOU, their constituents.

1. Contact your U.S. Representative and ask him or her to "support the immediate passage of the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007, H.R. 1424, without amendments."

2. Contact both of your U.S. Senators and ask them "to support the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007, S. 558."
We urge the Senate to add language to include all diagnoses currently covered in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Plan. The House bill already includes this language. Without this inclusive language in the Senate bill it is likely that people with eating disorders will continue to be discriminated against based on diagnosis.

3. Get the word out! Forward this message to friends, family, co-workers, and people on your e-mail list. Let them know that the call or e-mail today can get these bills through Congress very soon.
 

EATING DISORDER LOBBY DAY  - MAY 01, 2007

On May 1, 2007 - The Alliance joined over 80 advocates from all walks of life in Washington, DC to support mental health parity and raise awareness of the Federal Response to Eliminate Eating Disorders, the FREED Act.  We had the pleasure of meeting with Congressmen Tim Mahoney and Patrick Kennedy and aids to Senator Mel Martinez, Senator Bill Nelson, Congressman Alcee Hastings, Congressman Robert Wexler.

Meeting with Congressman Tim Mahoney

Meeting with Congressman Patrick Kennedy

About the FREED ACT (Federal Response to Eliminating Eating Disorders) - To be introduced

This comprehensive bill on eating disorders addresses research, treatment, education and prevention. 

Research Initiatives

• Know the numbers through national data bas and other initiatives.  Determine the prevalence, incidence, and correlates of all eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, and ED-NOS).
• Know the death rates.  Determine the morbidity and mortality rates associated with all eating disorders and provide a public report of this data annually.
• Know the costs or "economic burden" of eating disorders.  Undertake the necessary investigations to conduct an economic cost analysis of this costs of eating disorders in the US, including years of productive life lost, missed days of work, reduced work productivity, costs of medical/psychiatric treatment. prescription medications, hospitalizations, costs of medical and psychiatric co-morbidities, costs (to family and society), etc.
• Establish Centers of Excellence.  Develop an integrated system of Centers of Excellence for eating disorders, which will provide training opportunities for research, fund research programs, and coordinate the development of a research infrastructure nationwide. 

Education and Prevention Initiatives

• Study mandatory BMI reporting in school.  Determine the outcome of measuring BMI in schools and reporting the results to parents (including measuring eating disorders symptoms, and incidence of teasing or bullying based on body size. 
• Education and Training for all Health Professionals.  Train health professionals, to identify, prevent, appropriately treat and address the complications of eating disorders (using a team approach).
• Education and Training for School/Higher Education Professionals.  Train education professionals in evidence-based education programs about eating disorders, education professionals include teachers, professionals, school nurses, school aides, community liaisons, cooks, dieticians, social workers, counselors, coaches, athletic departments, and other.
• Educating the public through Public Service Announcements (PSAs).  Use PSAs to educate the public on types and the seriousness of (prevalence, comorbidities, health consequences - both physical and mental) eating disorders, how to obtain help, discrimination and bullying based on mental illness, body size, and the effects of media on self esteem and body image. 
• Bring eating disorders into already existing obesity initiatives.  Federally funded campaigns to fight obesity should also address eating disorders.  Federal studies should include eating disorder related questions (e.g. NHANES). 

Access to Adequate and Appropriate Treatment

• Access to care and defining universally accepted criteria for care.  Support establishing consistent and comprehensive universally accepted criteria for medical necessity for eating disorders.  Standardize terminology and definitions for eating disorders to be utilized among treatment centers, treatment teams, and consumers.
• Guidelines.  Any insurer that provides mental health coverage must provide coverage for eating disorders and follow standards of care as written in the Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Patients with Eating Disorders by the American Psychiatric Association. 

Actual legislation to be introduced later this year.  Please follow up with us and the Eating Disorders Coalition for more information.

We have joined the MySpace community.  Please visit us at www.myspace.com/eatingdisorderinfo to say hi!

The first nationally representative study of eating disorders in the United States appears in the February 2007 edition of Biological Psychiatry. The National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) is a nationally representative survey of the U.S. population that was administered face-to-face to a sample of 9,282 English-speaking adults ages 18 and older between February 2001 and December 2003.  Among the results:

• Lifetime prevalence of individual eating disorders is 0.6-4.5%.
• Lifetime prevalence of anorexia nervosa is .9% in women, .3% in men.
• Lifetime prevalence of bulimia nervosa is 1.5% in women, .5% in men.
• Lifetime prevalence of binge eating disorder is 3.5% in women, 2.0% in men.
• Eating disorders frequently impair the sufferer's home, work, personal, and social life.
• Binge eating is more common than anorexia or bulimia and is commonly associated with severe obesity.
• Eating disorders display substantial comorbidity with other mental health disorders.
• While eating disorders often coexist with other mental health disorders, eating disorders often go undiagnosed and untreated. A low number of sufferers obtain treatment for the eating disorder.
• Researchers found a surprisingly high rate of anorexia and bulimia among men, representing approximately one fourth of the cases of each disorder.

Biological Psychiatry, "The Prevalence and Correlates of Eating Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication," pages 348-358, by James I. Hudson, Eva Hiripi, Jr., Harrison G. Pope, and Ronald C. Kessler.

The complete article is available at www.sciencedirect.com ($30)