Eating Disorders

While the most common issue regarding body weight that's seen in today's society is excess weight, we must not overlook the fact that eating disorders exist as well.

There are a number of different types of eating disorders and they're not all about being extremely underweight like some may believe. Many eating disorders go completely unnoticed as the people who are suffering may be of a normal weight or may be even overweight for their height.

The important thing to always remember is that in most cases, eating disorders aren't just about food. In many cases there is a very large psychological component to them, so they must be treated as such.

While it is imperative to treat someone with an eating disorder with a healthy nutrition plan to help them get the nutrients their body needs, if you don't address the underlying emotional and psychological issues that caused the eating disorder, true recovery will never been seen.

Many times eating disorders are about low self-esteem, a feeling of a need to be in complete control, or a way to protect the sufferer from something they deem to be harmful in their environment.

Eating disorders for many sufferers are just a way of coping. Just like a smoker would turn to a cigarette for relief or an alcoholic would turn to a drink, the person suffering from an eating disorder feels relief from their problems by either eating vary large amounts of food or restricting their food intake completely, depending on the type of disorder at work.

Let's give you a brief run-down of what the different eating disorders are so you can fully understand them.

Anorexia

Anorexia is the eating disorder most people commonly think of and is associated with someone who is significantly underweight. The individual with this disorder exists on very little food each day and often has a very strong fear of being fat, despite them being so far from fat they are risking their health.

Anorexics may also practice extreme food rituals and become very upset if they are not able to eat the precise foods they have planned for during the day.

Interestingly enough many anorexics will also devote a great deal of time to learning about nutrition and even cooking meals for other people, yet never feed themselves properly.

Bulimia

Bulimia on the other hand is characterised by someone who often eats relatively normal most of the time, but has episodes where they eat extremely high volumes of food, usually while alone.

After the food is consumed however, they either abuse laxatives or induce vomiting to purge themselves of the calories so that they don't gain weight.

The problem with doing this is first they often develop serious stomach and dental problems due to the stomach acid coming up all the time and secondly, they may not prevent weight gain entirely as some of the calories could still be absorbed.

More importantly, they are completely out of control during these eating episodes and often are unable to stop.

Binge Eating Disorder

A very similar related disorder is binge eating disorder. This one is very much the same as bulimia only there is no purging involved. The person is typically overweight as they are allowing the calories to be absorbed by the body and this is causing excess weight storage.

Those who suffer from binge eating disorder often use food as a coping mechanism so are at the extreme end of an emotional eating problem.

Over-Exercising Disorder

Finally, the last type of eating disorder really isn't an 'eating' disorder per say, but falls into the same category. This disorder is over-exercising disorder.

The individual in this situation isn't going to use laxatives or vomiting to purge their food, but rather will go and spend hours in the gym after eating what they deem as too much.

In some cases this can take place without the binge as well, and when that occurs it lends more to the anorexic eating disorder instead. These people are often very underweight but rather than starving themselves to get down to that very low weight, they use over-exercise instead.

Any way you want to look at it though, all of these eating disorders are very serious and can harm an individual significantly. In some cases, they can even be life threatening.

The good news is that they can get help and treatment and if treated early enough, the outlook is quite good. If they are let to go on for years and years however, that person may deal with negative emotions surrounding their body and eating for the rest of their life.