What are Eating Disorders?
Anorexia Nervosa (self-starvation), Bulimia (eating/binging and forcing oneself to rid the food by vomiting, laxative abuse or exercise) and Compulsive Eating (frequent overeating when one is not hungry, “grazing” from food to food or eating large quantities of food in a short period of time, usually when alone) are complex psychological conflicts, including conflicts in family relationships, self image and self-esteem; struggles with negative emotions (like anger, jealousy, shame); or physical, sexual or emotional abuse. The typical thinking for an eating disorder sufferer is, “If I am thin, then I will feel OK about me.
Eating disorders are real illnesses that can affect how we eat and how we feel about food. They can be treated to help people who have them have healthy and full lives. From time to time, we all change our eating habits. Sometimes we reduce the amount of food we eat or go on a diet to shed some pounds, or we eat more to gain weight. These can be healthy ways to control or reach our ideal body weight. But, people who have eating disorders have unhealthy ways, or patterns, of eating. They may eat too much and become overweight, or way too little and become very thin. Sometimes a person can eat so little, or nothing at all, they actually begin to starve (called anorexia nervosa). A person can also eat an extreme amount of food all at once and then do things like vomit to rid the body of food (called bulimia nervosa). And, a person may not be able to control the need to overeat, often keeping it a secret (called binge eating disorder). People can also have wrong ideas, or misperceptions, o
There are two categories of eating disorders. Anorexia nervosa is a preoccupation with thinness and not eating, sometimes to a point where the person’s life is at risk. Bulimia nervosa is a pattern of extreme over-eating followed by a behaviour to undo the binge, such as forcing oneself to vomit or the misuse of laxatives. It is interesting to note that these disorders became prevalent in Western societies in the 1970s and 1980s when media became obsessed with the ideal image of thinness in females.
Eating disorders are generally a way in which someone’s eating habits are a risk to their health, leading to serious illness or even death in more severe cases. This can be through either limiting the intake of food (or it’s digestion) or over-eating (binging or compulsive eating). The two most common eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia.
