Ecstasy & Ed

Celebrities always talk about the diets they are on, the workouts and trainers they know, and the tips they hear about staying thin or having a good body.  However, one method of weight loss is not discussed publicly or at all, and that is drug use.  

Often, we hear about drug use among celebrities: musicians, actors, TV stars...but when we hear about them is is often when they are dead from overdose.  A lot of times, the types of drugs taken are to get a "high" but it is no secret that drug use can also leads to thinner, skinnier, and in society's eyes, "sexier" bodies.  Thus, when people see these images of famous people, it influences their thoughts on what society deems as beautiful, sexy, happy people.  To achieve that, drugs are often a quick and easy to achieve "perfection."  

Common drugs used for those with eating disorders are appetite suppressants, or anorectics.  Anorectics are "a dietary supplement and/or drug which reduces appetite, food consumption, and as a result, causes weight loss to occur."  It is important to note that appetite suppressants are:

"Used on a short-term basis clinically to treat obesity, some appetite suppressants are also available over-the-counter. In the United States, appetite suppressants do not have to be approved by the FDA when they are based on a 100% natural basis.  There are all kinds of natural appetite suppressants (supplements) on the market, helping people to control and limit their food intake. Most common natural appetite suppressants are based on hoodia, a genus of 13 species in the flowering plant family Apocynaceae, under the subfamily Asclepiadoideae. Also widely used as a basis is green tea, with other plant extracts, to limit calorie intake. Several appetite suppressants are based on a mix of natural ingredients, mostly using green tea as its basis, in combination with other plant extracts such asfucoxanthin, found naturally in seaweed. Drugs of this class are frequently stimulants of the phenethylamine family, related to amphetamine(informally known as speed)."

Another drug that is being used by people with eating disorders is ecstasy.  It has been found that "The drug ecstasy has appetite suppressant and exercise promoting effects that may appeal to young women who are concerned about weight and body image."  The study aimed to determine if women who used ecstasy differed in their thoughts about body image from those who do not take the drug.  Researchers found that:

"One hundred and thirty young women, all cigarette smokers, were recruited; 73 who used ecstasy were compared with 57 who did not. All were assessed on Garner's (1991) Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI-2), body mass index (BMI), depression and beliefs about the effects of different drugs on appetite, exercise and weight. The two groups did not differ on number of cigarettes smoked per day, depression scores, current BMI, lowest achieved BMI or ideal BMI.  Ecstasy users had significantly higher scores than controls on four of the 11 sub-scales of the EDI: bulimia, impulse dysregulation, social insecurity and interpersonal distrust.  For ecstasy users, scores on all four scales correlated positively with frequency of ecstasy use. However there were no group differences in 'drive for thinness' or 'body dissatisfaction' which may suggest that differences on other factors are related more to use of club drugs than to any specific eating pathology. Ecstasy users were more likely than controls to agree that ecstasy aids weight loss and that they exercise more when they use drugs."

Do you think celebrity drug use increases the use of drugs to loose weight by women? 

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorectic

Curran, H., & Robjant, K. (2006). Eating attitudes, weight concerns and beliefs about drug effects in women who use ecstasy. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 20(3), 425-431. doi:10.1177/0269881106060584