Night Stalker serial killer who terrorized California with a spree of satanic murders dies in hospital after 24 years on death row, Experts see strong link between sexual abuse and obesity

- Night Stalker serial killer who terrorized California with a spree of satanic murders dies in hospital after 24 years on death row
- Food Addiction In Women Tied To Sexual, Physical Abuse During Childhood
- Abuse victimization in childhood or adolescence and risk of food addiction in adult women
- How Childhood Trauma Can Cause Adult Obesity
- Experts see strong link between sexual abuse and obesity


Night Stalker serial killer who terrorized California with a spree of satanic murders dies in hospital after 24 years on death row

    Richard Ramirez, 53, died of liver failure while awaiting execution
    Ramirez was convicted in 1989 of 13 murders and later tied to several more. He was a self-proclaimed follower of Satan
    His trial was a horror show in which jurors heard about one victim's eyes being gouged out and another's head being nearly severed
    He earned the nickname Night Stalker
By Associated Press Reporter and Daily Mail Reporter  7 June 2013

....Satanic symbols were left at murder scenes and some victims were forced to 'swear to Satan' by the killer, who entered homes through unlocked windows and doors.

After his conviction, Ramirez flashed a two-fingered 'devil sign' to photographers and muttered a single word: 'Evil.'....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337625/Night-Stalker-serial-killer-terrorized-California-spree-Satanic-murders-dies-hospital-24-years-death-row.html


Food Addiction In Women Tied To Sexual, Physical Abuse During Childhood David Freeman 06/07/2013

But a shocking new study suggests that some cases of obesity grow out of sexual or physical abuse during childhood.

The study, conducted by scientists at Harvard Medical School, showed that women with a personal history of abuse are much more likely than other women to develop a food addiction.

For the study, a team led by Dr. Susan M. Mason, a postdoctoral fellow at the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology, studied the link between childhood abuse and adult food addiction in 57,321 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II.

(Food addiction involves behaviors such as repeated episodes of eating despite the absence of hunger and experiencing withdrawal symptoms when cutting back on certain foods, Dr. Mason told The Huffington Post in an email.)

Dr. Mason's team found that food addiction was almost twice as common among women who indicated that they had experienced sexual or physical abuse before age 18 than among women with no history of childhood abuse, according to a written statement released in conjunction with the research. Women who had experienced both sexual and physical abuse were even more likely to have food addiction.

Overall, the prevalence of food addiction ran from 6 percent in women with no history of childhood abuse all the way to 16 percent among women who had experienced both sexual and physical abuse....

But studies have turned up links between childhood abuse and obesity in men, Dr. Mason told The Huffington Post. One 2009 study of more than 15,000 adolescents found that men with a history of childhood sexual abuse were 66 percent more likely to be obese than other men, Time.com reported in 2010....

As Dr. Vincent Felitti, co-principal investigator of the California-based Adverse Childhood Experiences Study and an expert on the connection between childhood trauma and adult health problems, told Syracuse.com in 2010, "the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and obesity later in life is major, but, since childhood sexual abuse is a topic protected by shame and social taboo, it is concealed by time and by secrecy."

Dr. Mason's study was published in the journal Obesity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/07/food-addiction-women-sexual-physical-abuse-childhood_n_3398173.html


Abuse victimization in childhood or adolescence and risk of food addiction in adult women
    Susan M. Mason PhD,     Alan J. Flint MD,     Alison E. Field ScD, S. Bryn Austin ScD, Janet W. Rich-Edwards ScD DOI: 10.1002/oby.20500

Abstract

Objective: Child abuse appears to increase obesity risk in adulthood, but the mechanisms are unclear. This study examined the association between child abuse victimization and food addiction, a measure of stress-related overeating, in 57,321 adult participants in the Nurses' Health Study II (NHSII). Design and Methods: The NHSII ascertained physical and sexual child abuse histories in 2001 and current food addiction in 2009. Food addiction was defined as =3 clinically significant symptoms on a modified version of the Yale Food Addiction Scale. Confounder-adjusted risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using modified Poisson regression. Results: Over eight percent of the sample reported severe physical abuse in childhood, while 5.3% reported severe sexual abuse. Eight percent met the criteria for food addiction. Women with food addiction were 6 units of BMI heavier than women without food addiction. Severe physical and severe sexual abuse were associated with roughly 90% increases in food addiction risk (physical abuse RR=1.92; 95% CI: 1.76, 2.09; sexual abuse RR=1.87; 95% CI: 1.69, 2.05). The RR for combined severe physical abuse and sexual abuse was 2.40 (95% CI: 2.16, 2.67). Conclusions: A history of child abuse is strongly associated with food addiction in this population.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.20500/abstract



How Childhood Trauma Can Cause Adult Obesity
By Maia Szalavitz Tuesday, Jan. 05, 2010

....In recent years, studies by both Felitti and others have largely confirmed the association between sexual abuse — as well as other types of traumatic childhood experience — and eating disorders or obesity. A 2007 study of more than 11,000 California women found that those who had been abused as children were 27% more likely to be obese as adults, compared with those who had not, after adjusting for other factors. A 2009 study of more than 15,000 adolescents found that sexual abuse in childhood raised the risk of obesity 66% in males in adulthood. That study found no such effect in women, but did find a higher risk of eating disorders in sexually abused girls....
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1951240,00.html


Experts see strong link between sexual abuse and obesity
By Amber Smith July 25, 2010
Manlius, NY -- More than half of the women Dr. Wendy Scinta takes care of at her Medical Weight Loss practice in Manlius have sexual abuse in their past.

Typically they lose weight, hit a plateau and put the pounds back on. Over and over again. Until they deal with their demons.

Scinta saw this happen so often, with up to 75 percent of her female patients, that the medical history she takes of new patients now includes questions about abuse. Her treatment involves helping patients be comfortable with the attention that comes with thinner bodies. Mandatory group therapy sessions take place weekly in her office's conference room.

"If there's obesity, there's a good chance, especially if there's morbid obesity, that something tragic happened in that person's history, at one point or another," she said. Those affected are mostly women, mostly 100 or more pounds overweight, and mostly binge eaters. All races, and all social classes are equally represented, she said....
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/linking_sexual_abuse_to_obesit.html