Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are serious health conditions that affect both one’s physical and mental health. These conditions include problems in how the person think about food, eating, weight and shape, and in the eating behaviors. These symptoms can affect one’s health, emotions and their ability to function in important areas of life. Eating disorders can lead to lifelong issues if not well-managed. The commonest eating disorders are anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating disorder.
Most eating disorders involve focusing too much on weight, body shape and food. This can lead to unhealthy eating habits behaviors. These behaviors can impact significantly the ability to get the nutrition the body needs. Most eating disorders are linked to other mental conditions such as depression, body dysmorphia, anxiety and stress.
Symptoms of Eating Disorders
Anorexia
Anorexia also known as anorexia nervosa, can be a life-threatening eating disorder. It includes an unhealthy low body weight, intense fear of gaining weight, and a view of one’s weight and shape that is considered unusual. Anorexia often involves using extreme efforts to control weight and shape, which often seriously interfere with health and daily life.
Symptoms of Anorexia
- Having an intense fear of gaining weight.
- Being unable to realistically assess your body weight and shape (having a distorted self-image).
- Having an obsessive interest in food, calories and dieting.
- Changes in eating habits or routines, such as eating foods in a certain order or rearranging foods on a plate.
- A sudden change in dietary preferences, such as eliminating certain food types or food groups.
- Feeling overweight even if you are underweight.
- Fear of certain foods or food groups.
- Being very self-critical.
- Denying the seriousness of your low body weight and/or food restriction.
- Feeling a strong desire to be in control.
- Feeling irritable and/or depressed.
- Experiencing thoughts of self-harm or suicide.
- Making frequent comments about feeling “fat” or overweight despite weight loss.
- Purging through intentional vomiting and/or misusing laxatives or diuretics.
- Going to the bathroom right after eating.
- Using diet pills or appetite suppressants.
- Compulsive and excessive exercising or extreme physical training.
- Continuing to diet even when your weight is low for your sex, height and stature.
- Making meals for others but not yourself.
- Wearing loose clothing and/or wearing layers to hide weight loss and stay warm.
- Withdrawing from friends and social events
Bulimia
Bulimia (buh-LEE-me-uh), also called bulimia nervosa, is a serious, sometimes life-threatening eating disorder. Bulimia includes episodes of bingeing, commonly followed by episodes of purging. Sometimes bulimia also includes severely limiting eating for periods of time. This often leads to stronger urges to binge eat and then purge.
Symptoms of Bulimia
- Being preoccupied with your body shape and weight.
- Living in fear of gaining weight.
- Repeated episodes of eating abnormally large amounts of food in one sitting.
- Feeling a loss of control during binge eating.
- Forcing yourself to vomit or exercising too much to keep from gaining weight after bingeing.
- Using laxatives, diuretics or enemas after eating when they're not needed.
- Fasting, restricting calories or avoiding certain foods between binges.
- Using dietary supplements or herbal products excessively for weight loss.
Binge-eating Disorder
Binge-eating disorder involves eating food in a short amount of time. When bingeing, it feels like there’s no control over eating. But binge eating is not followed by purging. During a binge, people may eat food faster or eat more food than planned. Even when not hungry, eating may continue long past feeling uncomfortably full.
After a binge, people often feel a great deal of guilt, disgust or shame. They may fear gaining weight. They may try to severely limit eating for periods of time. This leads to increased urges to binge, setting up an unhealthy cycle. Embarrassment can lead to eating alone to hide bingeing. A new round of bingeing commonly occurs at least once a week.
Symptoms of Binge-eating
- Eating unusually large amounts of food in a specific amount of time, such as over a two-hour period
- Feeling out of control over eating
- Eating even when you're full or not hungry
- Eating rapidly during binge episodes
- Eating until you're uncomfortably full
- Frequently eating alone or in secret
- Feeling depressed, disgusted, ashamed, guilty or upset about your eating
- Frequently dieting, possibly without weight loss
Unlike a person with bulimia, after a binge, you don't regularly compensate for extra calories eaten by vomiting, using laxatives or exercising excessively. You may try to diet or eat normal meals. But restricting your diet may simply lead to more binge eating.
The severity of binge-eating disorder is determined by how often episodes of bingeing occur during a week.
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder includes extremely limited eating or not eating certain foods. The pattern of eating often doesn’t meet minimum daily nutrition needs. This may lead to problems with growth, development and functioning in daily life. But people with this disorder don’t have fears about gaining weight or body size. Instead, they may not be interested in eating or may avoid food with a certain colour, texture, smell or taste. Or they may worry about what can happen when eating. For example, they may have a fear of choking or vomiting, or they may worry about getting stomach problems.
Symptoms of Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
- Symptoms of Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.
- Anxiety when presented with “fear” foods.
- For adults, weight loss; for children, failure to gain weight.
- Dependence on nutritional supplements, a feeding tube or both.
- Avoidance of particular foods, based on texture, color, taste, smell, food groups, etc
- Frequent vomiting or gagging after exposure to certain foods
- Difficulty chewing food
- Lack of appetite
- Trouble digesting specific types of foods
- Consumption of extremely small portions
- Dependence on external feeding tubes or nutritional supplements
- Social isolation
Causes of Eating Disorders
The exact cause of eating disorders is not known. As with other mental health conditions, there may be different causes, such as:
Genetics: Some people may have genes that increase their risk of developing eating disorders.
Biology: Biological factors, such as changes in brain chemicals, may play a role in eating disorders.
Risk Factors to Eating Disorder
- Family history
- Other mental health issues. Trauma, anxiety, depression
- Dieting and starvation
- A history of weight bullying
- Whether it's heading off to college, moving, landing a new job, or a family or relationship issue, change can bring stress. And stress may increase the risk of an eating disorder.
Treatment of Eating Disorders
Behavioral Therapy: Certain behavioral therapies can be effective in treating eating disorders. These include:
Family-based Treatment (FBT). FBT is an outpatient treatment for children and teenagers with anorexia. It also is likely effective for bulimia and other problem eating behaviors. The family is involved in making sure that the child or other family member follows healthy-eating patterns and maintains a healthy weight.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT is commonly used in eating disorder treatment, especially for bulimia, binge-eating disorder and some other problem eating behaviors. A type of CBT called enhanced CBT is used most often. You learn how to monitor and improve your eating habits and moods, develop problem-solving skills, and explore healthy ways to cope with stressful situations.
Medicines
Medicines cannot exactly treat eating disorder. However, for bulimia or binge-eating disorder, some medications can be used manage urges to binge or purge or help manage an extreme focus on food and diet.
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