What is an eating disorder?

Eating Disorders are serious and complex emotional and physical addictions. Without treatment eating disorders lead to mood swings, physical problems, and potential death. Eating Disorders include a range of conditions that involve an obsession with food, weight and appearance to the degree that a person's heath, relationships and daily activities are adversely affected.

While commonly affecting young women, eating disorders are widespread and can impact people of all ages and sexes. It is estimated that 10 million women and 1 million men in the United States suffer from an eating disorder, and the statistics are growing. The number of men with an eating disorder has more than doubled in the last ten years.

Whether a person restricts food intake, binge eats, binges and purges, abuses laxatives, compulsively overeats, or excessively exercises these behaviors often are symptoms and not the problem. They often develop as a way of coping with emotional pain, conflicts related to separation, low self-esteem, depression, stress or trauma.

Eating disorders are characterized by severe disturbances in eating behavior. The practice of an eating disorder can be viewed as a survival mechanism. Just as an alcoholic uses alcohol to cope, a person with an eating disorder can use eating, purging or restricting to deal with their problems. Some of the underlying issues that are associated with an eating disorder include low self-esteem, depression, feelings of loss of control, feelings of worthlessness, identity concerns, family communication problems and an inability to cope with emotions. The practice of an eating disorder may be an expression of something that the eating disordered individual has found no other way of expressing.

Types of eating disorders

Anorexia Nervosa: Anorexia nervosa is self-imposed starvation. Anorexia nervosa is a serious, life-threatening disorder, which usually stems from underlying emotional causes. Although people with anorexia nervosa are obsessed with food, they continually deny their hunger. People with anorexia nervosa often also limit or restrict other parts of their lives besides food, including relationships, social activities, or pleasure. Anorexia nervosa can cause severe medical problems and even lead to death. The disorder involves extreme weight loss--at least 15% below the individual's "ideal" weight--and a refusal to maintain body weight that is even minimally normal for their age and height and body frame.

Bulimia Nervosa: Bulimia nervosa is a serious eating disorder that can be fatal if left untreated. People who have bulimia nervosa routinely "binge," consuming large amounts of food in a very short period of time, and immediately "purge," ridding their bodies of the just-eaten food by self-inducing vomiting, taking enemas, or abusing laxatives or other medications. If left untreated, bulimia nervosa can lead to serious and even life-threatening problems, such as depression, anxiety disorders, heart damage, kidney damage, injury to all parts of the digestive system, and severe dental damage. Those with bulimia nervosa are at risk for dangerous impulsive, self-destructive behaviors, such as kleptomania, self-mutilation, alcohol and/or drug abuse, and sexual promiscuity.

Compulsive eating disorder: Compulsive overeating can affect women or men, though it appears twice as often among women. People with compulsive overeating disorder suffer from episodes of uncontrolled eating or bingeing followed by periods of guilt and depression. Compulsive overeating is marked by the consumption of large amounts of food, sometimes accompanied by a pressured, "frenzied" feeling. Compulsive overeating disorder may cause a person to continue to eat even after they become uncomfortably full.

Binge eating disorder: The essential features of binge-eating disorder are recurrent, out-of-control episodes of consuming abnormally large amounts of food. If you suffer from this disorder you eat whether you are hungry or not and consume food well past being uncomfortably full.
Binge-eaters are usually extremely distressed by their eating behavior and experience feelings of disgust and guilt both during and after bingeing. Most feel ashamed and try to hide their problem. Many are so good at concealing their binge-eating habits from others that even close family members or friends are unaware they suffer from an eating disorder.

Binge-Eating Disorder: Binge-eating episodes not accompanied by purging at least 2 times per week.
Occurs in approximately 30%-50% of subjects in weight control programs (40% are males).

[b]Obesity: [/b]25% or more over ideal body weight: Obesity is one of our nation's most critical health problems; each year, hundreds of thousands of people are affected by serious and sometimes life-threatening mental and physical complications as a direct consequence of their obesity. Appropriate treatment not only improves individuals' quality of life, it can save lives.

The consequences of obesity can be severe. If left untreated, an obese person is at pronounced risk of developing serious mental disorders, such as depression, personality disorders, or anxiety disorders as a direct consequence of their obesity. For many, obesity leads to chronic and often life-threatening eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa. Feelings of shame and a profound sense of isolation often accompany obesity.