It is a sad fact that one of the most simple and vital acts of human nature, eating, can actually lead folks to develop incredibly harmful habits and even lead to death. While most of us have a very healthy relationship with food and use it to feed our bodies the vital nutrients it needs, others view food in an incredibly different light and use it as a means to control emotions and how they feel about themselves and their weight. This unhealthy view on eating can lead to a variety of eating disorders that can cause malnourishment, sickness, and in the most extreme cases, death.

Oftentimes, food is not the root cause of these disorders but instead various types of psychological disorders such as depression, issues of self esteem, feelings of anxiety, or other types of behavioral disorders such as substance addiction irrational phobias of gaining weight. No matter what the cause, unhealthy practices with food can often lead to harmful eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.

Bulimia is characterized by someone who chooses to eat large quantities of food at one setting, known as binging, and then taking harmful steps to avoid the weight gain associated with these gluttonous meals. These harmful practices can be anything from vomiting, ingesting diuretics, or engaging in marathon exercise sessions to try to burn off the calories they consumes. One of the troubles with diagnosing bulimia is that the patient may maintain somewhat healthy levels of weight so that it is hard to tell there is anything wrong. Oftentimes, it is an underlying medical condition such as a throat or stomach disorder (caused by excessive vomiting) that is a tell tale sign.

Another common and incredibly deadly disorder associated with eating is called Anorexia nervosa. This conditioned is characterized by the patient having an irrational fear of gaining weight. Someone with Anorexia may feel like they are fat even though they are extremely underweight and potentially even malnourished. These individuals often quit eating altogether and fast for weeks at a time and lose significant amount of weight, including most of their muscle mass as well. Anorexics may choose self vomiting and laxatives as well as way to encourage consistent weight loss at all times. Unlike Bulimia, it can be fairly obvious to spot a victim of anorexia. Aside from being incredibly thin, they may exhibit yellowish skin, brittle hair and nails, anemia, and an extremely low blood pressure.

While both of these conditions are extremely harmful, they ARE treatable. There are various types of psychotherapy in existence today that will help the patient work through the underlying issues they have that may or may not stem from the food itself, but perhaps other issues leading them to this unhealthy view of themselves and food. It is important to get diagnosed and begin treatment as early as possible as these conditions can continue to get worse and lead to the patient’s death if left unchecked for long periods of time.

Most of us have a normal and healthy relationship with food. We eat to keep our bodies functioning properly, we eat for the sheer taste and enjoyment of it, and we eat together with friends and family as a way to bond and stay in touch with our social partners. It can be very hard for those of us who have normal healthy eating habits to understand the hell that those with eating disorders have to endure on a daily basis.

An eating disorder is an extremely harmful condition in which a person adopts harmful practices involving food as a way to deal with emotional pain. Once the eating disorder has truly taken control of their lives, the sufferer often has no control of their own to break free. They can be stuck in a downward spiral of negative activity that leads to ridicule, concern of family and friends, and a host of negative medical ailments that only gets worse with time. Unfortunately, many people don’t understand these disorders and instead of trying to empathize with their situation, they merely look down on them for having lack of discipline in their eating habits. If it were only as easy as snapping out of it, many who suffer eating disorders certainly would because going through the pain and torture of having an eating disorder can not only be one of the most serious things that ever affects one’s life, it can also lead to one’s death.

Let’s look at a scenario of someone who is suffering from bulimia. Bulimia is a condition in which a person will first binge eat all kinds of food often totaling thousands of calories, and then once they realize what they have done, they choose to force themselves to vomit to avoid gaining weight from all those calories. In addition, they may resort to such tactics as using laxatives to lose weight or even exercising for hours at a time to burn off any excess fat they did gain. These individuals feel a strong compulsion to this binge and purge relationship with food and often simply can’t break free. Believe me it can be incredibly difficult to suffer with because many bulimics maintain a fairly normal weight and others may not know about their condition. This leaves the sufferer to keep their condition in the dark and they may suffer alone for years before the secret ever comes out.

It is important for us as individuals and members of society to try to understand that people suffering from eating disorders have a sickness which they have little control over. Because of the stigmas associated with them, many folks won’t ever seek treatment for fear that their secret will become public and they would have to deal with the shame thrown on them by their peers. If we could begin to use compassion versus criticism, many more people may seek to speak about the troubles that they are suffering from and seek help from others to rid themselves of horrible conditions such as eating disorders.