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.

bulimia

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.

Anorexia nervosa

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.

Tags:,

Related posts

Tagged with: •

Filed under: Eating Disorders

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!