Eating Disorders : An Overview

Title : Eating Disorders : An Overview
Author: Sandra Kim Leong
Article:
Eating disorders refer to conditions whereby you have an extremecompulsion to eat or the lack of it. Eating disorders aredisruptive to your physical and emotional well-being.
There are many types of eating disorders. However, the mostcommonly known ones are known bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosaand binge eating disorder. These three conditions have differentsymptoms and causes and effects. Other eating disorders includehyperphagia, rumination and pica.
Anorexia nervosa is also known as a psychiatric disorder. Morefemales are diagnosed with this condition than men. It isusually associated with the perception of your body image. Wheninflicted with this condition, you become obssessed with theidea of carving your body to a "perfect" shape. In order toachieve this, you adopt harsh eating habits such as voluntarystarvation, excessive exercise, taking diuretic drugs, takingdiet pills, etc. Eating disorders in this form have extremelyunhealthy effects on the stomach, esophagus and to the entiredigestive system.
Bulimia symptoms differ from anorexia but has similarpsychological causes. In bulimia, the main idea behind it is totrick the body in the eating process. Binge eating disorders area central feature of bulimia nervosa; that is when you rapidlyconsume an excessive amount of food.
If you have eating binges, very often you do not want others toknow about your behaviour. You feel ashamed or depressed aboutovereating. You then undertake compensatory behaviour forovereating such as purging (induced vomiting or laxative abuse),fasting, and heavy exercising. By first eating an excessiveamount of food, you get the pleasure of eating what you wantwithout caring about the nutritional and then by vomiting it outfor example, the fat and calories from the food are eliminated.
Bulimia eating disorders have two negative aspects. By vomiting,acid forms up in the stomach and esophagus which can get damagedquickly. Your body also does not receive adequate vitamins,minerals and other nutritional elements from the food, sincethey are all purged.
Eating disorders are mostly triggered by psychological factors.In minor cases, however, they are due to intolerance to certainfoods. For example, you may have a calcium eating disorderbecause of being lactose intolerance. The causes of yourintolerance in this case may not be entirely psychological.
Eating disorders can be treated with the appropriate help andcare. Do not dismiss your condition believing that they are notserious. In severe cases, eating disorders can lead to death.Seek medical attention rightaway if you suspect that you haveany warning indications of this condition.

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