by Aurora Green, UNC CEED Summer Research Fellow and PhD student in clinical psychology University of Maine What Is Interoceptive Awareness? Mental health symptoms can have many different causes. Some of these causes, called transdiagnostic mechanisms, can lead people to experience more than one mental health symptom or illness at the same time. One transdiagnostic mechanism that I’ve been especially interested in since starting my Ph.D.

by Kathryn Pasquariello, CEED Summer Research Fellow and PhD student in clinical psychology at Suffolk University It's another Saturday night and there's nothing to stream. I reluctantly flip to live broadcast and the thrills of cable TV fill the screen. Moments later, the soft smiles of paid advertising talent (so often a thin, able-bodied, White set) frolic across fields of technicolor daisies—birds chirp, the sun shines, butterflies take flight.

by Haley Graver, UNC CEED Summer Research Fellow and PhD student in clinical psychology at Drexel University How Are Eating Disorders and Sleep Connected? Have you ever noticed that your eating habits affect how well you sleep? Or that a bad night’s sleep makes you want to eat more? This isn’t just your imagination. Research increasingly shows that eating and sleeping are connected—and for people with eating disorders, that connection may be even more noticeable.

by Emily Woodworth, CEED Summer Research Fellow and PhD student in clinical psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York “SkinnyTok” has been making headlines since early April—and for good reason. This dangerous social media trend glorifies thinness and promotes unhealthy weight loss tips, often disguised as health and wellness advice.1 Posts include low-calorie meal plans, workout videos, and “before-and-after” photos, among other things—but this content isn’t checked or approved by professionals (one registered dietitian said she would never recommend calorie counts as low as what she sees suggested on SkinnyTok2).

A new update, led by researchers at the UNC School of Medicine and the Gillings School of Global Public Health, describes major findings from the past half decade in the realm of psychiatric genomics,...

by Cynthia Bulik, PhD Back in the early 2000s, a remarkable and deeply determined mother laid the groundwork for what would become the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders (CEED). One mother. On February 14, 2021, Marguerite (Rita) Lovett Robbins passed peacefully in her Chapel Hill home. Without Rita, CEED would not exist. Rita’s daughter, the late Jennifer McLamb Whitaker, had to be flown to New York to receive treatment for her eating disorder.

by the UNC CEED Research Team Have you ever wondered what happens when someone has all the signs of anorexia nervosa (AN), but their weight has never gotten low enough for them to receive an AN diagnosis? They get labeled as having “atypical anorexia nervosa,” or AAN. Even though AAN can be devastating, people with this label are often told they’re “not sick enough” for inpatient or residential treatment, can have insurance coverage denied even for outpatient care, and are often excluded from research that could help clarify just how serious their condition is.