What is an Eating Disorder?
While we all worry about food sometimes, overeat at holidays, or skip a meal, people with eating disorders are obsessed with body dissatisfaction. They participate in body altering activities. They often struggle to hide eating patterns they cannot control. Ultimately they require psychological assessment. Societal and cultural pressures emphasize thinness as a mark of attractiveness and acceptance. We live in a culture that spends billions on diets and where “thin is in.” Eating disorders affect 5-10 million young and adult women and one million males in the U.S. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are two types of eating disorders that are becoming more common. Anorexia An anorexic person has abnormal weight loss from continuous self-starvation or severe self-imposed dieting. They simply will not eat, or eat tiny amounts of low-fat, low-calorie food. They often skip meals. Most anorexics over-exercise to stay thin. There is an extreme fear of gaining weight. If anorexic patients do
A. The most common element surrounding ALL Eating Disorders is the presence of a low self esteem. Most who are suffering with this illness have a low self esteem and often a tremendous need to control their surroundings and emotions. These eating disorders are usually a unique reaction to a variety of external and internal conflicts, such as stress, anxiety, unhappiness, real physical ailments and feeling like life is out of control. Eating disorders can often be brought on from sickness and disease.
