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What is an eating disorder?
An eating disorder is an illness that causes people to experience severe disturbances in their eating behaviors related to thoughts and emotions. Preoccupation with food, body weight, and shape may signal an eating disorder. Disturbances in eating behavior often lead to further health problem including mild anemia, thinning of bones, low blood pressure, infertility and even brain damage.
Types of Eating Disorders
Anorexia nervosa is diagnosed when a patient weighs 15% less than normal healthy weight for their height. Behaviors include extreme restrictive eating, fear of being fat, distorted body image, and denial of low body weight.
Bulimia nervosa consists of frequent recurrent episodes of binge-eating which consists of consuming unusually large amounts of food. People with bulimia sense lack of control over their episodes. The binge-eating is then compensated with forced vomiting, excessive use of laxative or diuretics, fasting, excessive exercise, or a combination of these behaviors.
Orthorexia is a newer eating disorder that does not yet have specific diagnostic criteria, but is characterized by a person’s obsession with ‘healthful’ food. People with orthorexia become fixated on ‘healthy eating’ to the point it damages their well-being. Orthorexia behavior includes but is not limited to cutting our entire food groups deemed as unhealthy, compulsive checking of ingredient lists and nutrition labels, and unusual interest in the health in what others are eating.
Treatment
Eating disorders contain both a physical and emotional aspect. It is important to seek early treatment as people with eating disorders are at higher risk for suicide. The first step to recovery is restoring a healthy weight, interrupting binge-purge cycles, and halting obsessive behavior. However, taking these steps do not address the underlying emotional problems. Psychotherapy will help individuals with eating disorders understand the thoughts and emotions that trigger their behaviors. Medication is also available to help treat individuals. If you would like to learn more about eating disorders feel free to reach out to your Allied Wellness Health Coach.
