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It's not just for teenagers and young women anymore.  Sadly, anorexia and bulimia are striking middle-aged and older women, too. A friend whose daughter recently married confided that, while she had lost seven pounds for the wedding (and this woman is thin), she found that, after the wedding, she'd eat something, see how many calories it was, then go work out for that exact same amount of calories so she didn't gain weight.  "I couldn't stop," she said.  "I see how you can get obsessed." In a recent study, women 60-70 were asked about their eating behaviors, weight history and how they felt about their bodies.  A shocking 90% said they felt very or moderately fat, and over half reported being dissatisfied with their bodies. You have to remember, we live in a culture where thinness to the point of boniness is prized, and these days, 60-year-olds want to look like 40-year-olds.  If they can't quite meet that goal, why not starve yourself? ...

We’re killing ourselves.  The number of baby boomers committing suicide has almost doubled in the last 11 years. “From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent, to 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, up from 13.7,” Tara Parker-Pope writes at The New York Times. She notes that, although suicide rates are growing among both middle-aged men and women, far more men take their own lives – 27.3 deaths per 100,000, while for women it was 8.1 deaths per 100,000. Most at risk are men in their 50s, whose suicide rate doubled during this time period.  Experts believe it’s a combination of tough financial times and the availability of pain killers like Oxy Contin that people take to feel better. And some think it’s greatly underreported. “It is the baby boomer group where we see the highest rates of suicide,” the C.D.C.’s deputy director, Ileana Arias, told Parker-Pope. “There may be something about that group, and how th...