Eating Disorders

Our bodies are like machines, but unlike machines, we need nourishment regularly to keep our bodies from succumbing to disease, fatigue and ware and tear. Not only that, we need nourishment to grow and repair worn out tissues.

What happens though, when we start eating or avoid it altogether? The over intake of nourishment or the lack thereof, can result in various physical and mental health problems. It is common knowledge that what we eat also affects our daily activities and emotional well being. Eating disorders therefore impair us in many ways.

There are a lot of eating disorders and most of them are related to our body image.

The following are the types of eating disorders:

Anorexia Nervosa: A deliberate starving of the self which leads to sustained weight loss over a period of time. This is a serious disorder which is usually triggered due to a distorted body image. Anorexia nervosa can eventually prove fatal. An anorexic patient has body weight which is abnormally lower than the recommended weight.

The Body Mass Index is also abnormally low, generally less than 17.5. The early signs show absence of menstrual cycle for three consecutive months. The patient also exhibits a great deal of preoccupation with body weight.

Bulimia Nervosa: Bulimia nervosa is characterized by binge eating followed by feelings of extreme guilt and remorse. To make up for the binge eating, the patient generally follows a crash diet or shows over-compensatory behavior like self-induced vomiting.

Some Bulimics associate ingestion with feelings of comfort and a temporary high. However, the binge episode invariably leads to feelings of guilt, shame and embarrassment. Usually diagnose in young people in their late adolescence or early adulthood.

Binge Eating Disorder: The most common disorder, where the person obsesses about food and consumes large quantities of food – usually more than the required amount. Binge eating is usually characterized by depression and studies have found out that obese more binge eaters show high levels of depression than obese people that are non-binge eaters. The patients usually have control issues and are not very sociable, with almost no affinity to their community. Most people diagnosed with binge eating disorder never know that they have a problem.

There are several other eating disorders like selective eating disorders where a patient is mentally averse to certain kind of food, even though biologically they have no intolerance towards those food substances.