Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The "K&E Diet" is Wrong



Take a Stand Against the K & E Diet! 

The Eating Disorders Coalition encourages you to contact The Today Show to express your dismay at their recent coverage of the "K & E Diet", a diet that uses feeding tubes to promote rapid weight loss. By giving the "K & E Diet" such prime airtime The Today Show encouraged risky weight loss strategies. Fad diets and rapid weight loss are potentially dangerous. At least 1 in 4 people who goes on a diet develops eating disordered thoughts and behaviors.  Two out of 10 people with anorexia die of the disorder.  This is not a laughing matter.  The tragic reality is that some people suffering from eating disorders die because they can't get the feeding tube they need in order to survive because insurance companies all too often don't cover life saving eating disorder treatment.

We applaud CNN for their appropriate segment (see link below) on the Nasogastric Tubes this afternoon, so let's thank them for shining light on the dangers of this terrible practice which their Medical Ethicist calls, “stupid”. Let's thank CNN and ask The Today Show to follow suit!
http://cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/health/2012/04/18/nr-feeding-tube-loose-weight.cnn.html

Here's what you can do: 

  • Contact CNN and THANK THEM for responsibly addressing this issue: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/ 
  • Contact The Today Show and ask that Kathie Lee apologize on-air for calling the dangerous diet trend "genius" (at 5:19 in video -below)
  • Contact The Today Show ask them to bring on eating disorder experts to address the dangers of this quick-fix rapid-weight loss diet
  • Share with them your personal opinion on why you feel making light of feeding tubes does a serious disservice to those suffering the deadliest of all mental health illnesses, eating disorders and ask MSNBC & The Today Show to feature a segment like CNN -responsibly addressing the dangers of this fad diet.
The Today Show & Kathie Lee/Hoda contact information:


(Here is Kathie Lee and Hoda discussing the diet: see: 5:14 - 6:38 in video):
 http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29054368/    -- the video is graphic in nature (shows medical procedure of NG tube being inserted)

9 comments:

searching for eating with said...

Thank you, Eating Disorders Coalition! For taking swift action, for giving us all concrete actions to take ourselves!

Lori L said...

Thank you SO much for providing concrete ways we can express how dangerous this new fad is. ~Lori

Anonymous said...

The link to the Kathie Lee/Hoda clip shows todays clip not from the 17th.
The Drs interviewed on the Today show stated that they thought is was dangerous and not to be done.

Anonymous said...

Here's a link to the video i watched, not the one you posted...
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29054368/#47061122

Anonymous said...

I did not hear her call the diet "genius" at any point?

MelsArts said...

Stop the madness. Have you NO CLUE what you are doing? If not, i will fill you in.

You are promoting Eating Disorders.

You are promoting self-abuse for the sake of thinness.

Shame on you.

MelsArts said...

Shame on you!

Have you no idea what you are promoting?

Eating Disordered thinking.

Thinness at the cost of health and rational thinking.

Stop the madness!

Anonymous said...

It would be nice if we stopped trying to force our opinions on other people. Let businesses and people have their own opinions on things and spend all of your time telling future generations that opinions are just that - opinions and not fact. We as a society need to stop blaming others for our issues and demanding businesses to change how they are run.

Unknown said...

Thank you for the varied opinions and comments, everyone.