As a foodie, eating is a pleasure for me but for millions of people this vital necessity can be converted into unhealthy disorders with overeating, binge eating or the contrary literally, starving. The most commons are the anorexia and bulimia, but lately specialists have found more classifications and alas, they are increasing due to bad lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits.
Last weekend I was chatting with a nutritionist friend at lunch in a parrillada about these themes and we agree that the causes of this eating disorder is not the food itself, but the way that you see it, frequently like your inevitable enemy. Body image-conscience, the permanent issue about your weight and dangerous yo-yo diets can get worse with extreme complications.
The majority that suffer these eating disorders are women and teens are the principal victims; there are also male eating disorder, but in lower proportion.
The best treatment for eating disorders is a rapid diagnosis with multidisciplinary teams e.g. psychologists, nutritionists, doctors, and so on.
Is it possible to achieve a rehabilitation of these eating disorders? Yes with persistence and effort you can have a normal balanced normal life like Sophia of Burp and Slurp~; she has passed through ED (eating disorder) and she tells us her experience at her wonderful blog between other delicious things.
Let’s see some of these compulsive eating disorders.
Anorexia Nervosa
Persons are obsessed with food and with a body image distortion more a compulsive fear of gaining weight. In general, it describes a personality of low self-esteem more the high pressure of the media to be fit, for them is literally starvation.
Excessive weight loss can become very dangerous because the body don’t receive the necessary nutrients.
Symptoms of anorexia are: looking extremely thin, tiredness, dizziness, faints, dry skin, etc. More warning signs of anorexia are deleting some meals, rejecting to eat permanently, only eating food low calories and excessive workouts.
Bulimia Nervosa
The bulimia is characterized for recurrent episodes of binge eating (a pattern of uncontrollable eating of excessive food) followed by called compensatory behaviors. These compensatory conducts are self-induced vomiting, purging using diuretics and laxatives trying to compensate the overeating just done. Often this type of conduct is consequence of feeling ashamed about being fat. Some cases can be accompanied with excessive exercises to try to burn the unnecessary calories eaten.
These symptoms may occur daily or sporadically, being the triggers stress or problems with body weight among others.
Signs of bulimia are harder to recognize if we compare with the anorexia, because bulimics have a relative normal average weight.
Night Eating Syndrome (NES)
Generally speaking this night eating disorder begins skipping meals during the day or only eating very few calories, hence the hunger increase at night. They can have abundant nocturnal meals in a binge eating pattern and of course after this disproportionate emotional eating, it can induce insomnia or sleeping issues based on anxiety or depression along the day. More than half of the necessary calories for the journey are eaten during the night.
Compulsive Overeating
It’s very common this emotional eating disorder where the person eats thousands and thousands of calories in one go. Opposite to the bulimia, the food isn’t purged so you can imagine that these over-eaters will become obese very soon. Causes are various like different unsuccessful diets, stress, depression, etc. This is a food addiction where they can eat huge amounts of food but they aren’t hungry.
The symptoms of the compulsive overeating disorder are persons who tend to eat extremely rapid and very little in public to avoid guilt or shame in front of others.
Diabulimia
It’s other eating disorder suffered with persons with type 1 diabetes. With an extreme obsession of weight loss, they inject themselves less insulin than necessary. This behavior tends to increase the sugar in blood (hyperglycemia), the body is unable to process sugars so it’s eliminated in the urine instead of being used for the muscles or stored as fat. They can have important weight loss but with long-term complications.
Orthorexia nervosa
The change of habits of a person of healthy eating can become to an uncontrollable obsession for only “healthy” food. They put aside food with additives, colorants, pre-prepared meals and with excess of salt, sugar or fat. They stop visiting friends, relatives and restaurants – because they don’t know how the meals were prepared! They tend to isolate of others and can lead to harsh malnutrition or worst problems. Unlike the anorexic that want to lose weight, the motive of the orthorexic is to stay healthy but of course they cross, in excess, the healthy-line.
Selective Eating Disorder (SED)
This eating disorder appears with kids avoiding certain type of foods. The problem is when this picky or fussy eating is transferred to middle childhood and adolescence, or worst to adult life. The impossibility of trying new foods based in textures, aromas and the very high limited range of foods can derive in malnutrition and social problems in adult lives.
They can be restricted only to a certain brand or avoiding a complete gamma of foods like vegetables or fruits. The consequence is obvious, with the lack of minerals, vitamins and other nutrients.
Permarexia
Permarexia is an eating disorder where the person (habitually female) is in a constant and permanent diet. The cause for them is that “everything I eat makes me gain weight” They try to maintain a very low weight level and the meals are just only strictly the necessary for survive. Permarexics have extreme concepts about their body image. It’s impossible that you can maintain your vitality only with some vegs and diet sodas. We’ve had a dead of a fashion model in my country Uruguay apparently for this cause.
Drunkorexia
Some specialists call drunkorexia as an eating disorder. But, what is drunkorexia? A simple equation: you avoid some meals anticipating drinking sessions later to not increase your weight<
/i>. The food kcals not eaten are replaced by the alcohol-calories, a typical compensatory behavior. The fear to gain weight can decide even that alcohol is more important than food avoiding eating practically all the day. It’s certainly a dangerous conduct.
Extra Eating Disorder Information, Help and Links
* National Eating Disorders Association
* Academy for Eating Disorders
* SAMHSA’s National Mental Health Information Center
* National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders
* Aluba – Anorexia and Bulimia Disorders
* Anorexia and Bulimia Care (ABC)
* American Diabetes Association
* The Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders
Have you recognized the ED symptoms in relative / friend? Have you assisted or accompanied to eating disorder treatment centers? The help/therapy has been successful? I’m interested in hearing from you!
If you enjoyed your read: 
Subscribe in a RSS reader or get updates by Email!
Photo credits by daniellehelm and by Bruce Tuten
Related Posts:
great post oh Sophias blog is great you should as her to guest post for you
Gera
This was a really nice post, I am glad you took the time to discuss these often ignored illnesses that are so prevalent amongst people today. I attribute a lot of body image issues to our media — they are so invasive with ads, models, celebrities etc…which is why I do not watch a lot of tv or read magazines — I stick to the food channel and food magazines hee hee hee!! But back on a serious note, I think it's important for people to be aware of these illnesses as well as understand them, so thank you for that. This post rocked
Great post,Gera! Thank you for all the wonderful information. Thank god I love food
I guess most people got this Selective Eating Disorder(SED)problem, not just children some adults may also facing the same problem! That's why I'm so headache making meals for my son & hubby, they're both very selective in food.
Great post Gera a lot of good information there to help other people
This is a great post. We have to be very careful to what the kids hear and see. I have 2 at home, and all I want them is to learn to make healthy eating a habit..very good information.
Great information Gera! I've never heard of some of these. But I realized one of my friends has one of these disorders! I knew something wasn't right but didn't have a name to put to it.
Fantastic information – great write up and list of resources. You always provide such good and useful information and share it so generously.
great post had no idea how serious this was….thanks
Gera, this is such a comprehensive and informative post! I had no idea about the orthorexia nervosa. I think my mother in law suffers from it, she travels with her own food whenever she visits us.
Gera this is such an informative post. I did not know so many disorders existed. Thank you for the info!
Great post, I did RT! My niece suffered from Bulimia for some time. She did overcome it and is now healthier than ever. thanks for sharing
An interesting post. Eating disorder are linked to non-food problems, that's true…
Cheers,
Rosa
I think people perceive individuals with eating disorders as disgusting, immature, vain and very image driven. Though these people are none of the above, they have an illness and in a lot of cases the eating disorders offer a sense of control.
Eating Disorders is so serious and yet a sad thing because it's mostly due to society's view on what is beautiful. There are so many eating disorders you listed that I never heard of, I learned something new today!
Eating disorders are real. I would bet that 100% of the women I know (in real life) have some form of eating disorder.
Excellent information! We just had a teacher training on EDs.
this is soo informative gera!1 i love it!!
cheers!
World wide serious problem especially among teens that should be address. Thanks for the info Gera.
Wow Gera.
Thank you so much for publicizing the dangers and different symptoms of eating disorders. It is not just limited to anorexia, bulimia, and binging, the three eating disorders that most people are knowledgeable about…there are even more different forms of eating disorders that are even more dangerous precisely for the fact that most people disregard them because it doesn't fit the exact criteria for anorexia or bulimia.
Thank you for the great information. I learned something new myself. And thank you for the kind shout-out!
Very information as always Gera. I ddin't realise that permarexia was an actual disorder! I know so many like that
I didn't know about some of these, I studied DSM-IV in psych classes but that was over 12 years now so they must have added new disorders. Very interesting to learn.
Thanks for raising a very important topic. There are definitely some here I never knew!
I have an adult friend with the SED. She won't eat anything with any kind of sauce on it. Even a hamburger with ketchup or mayo or mustard. Nothing. It's weird.
I did get her to try some plain ribs that I smoked and she loved them.
Thank you for this very wonderful overview.
I grew up with zero idea of how my body was supposed to look — literally my parents would go from saying I was fat in the morning to getting too skinny by dinner time in less than 24 hours.
Couple that with the mass media and family push that sweets especially chocolate could substitute for emotional support and I was almost doomed to a life of up and down weight.
It's part of my philosophy now that I won't eat food of any type when I'm feeling bad emotionally. Do I feel 100% positive about my body? No. But when I was seriously underweight and at my ideal weight I'm bounce around between thinking I was fat to thinking I was ok — I never got that I might have been too thin or just right.
Thank you again for posting this.
hEY,
I AM ONLY SAY THAT ONE FAMOUS SCIENTIST SAYS "FOOD IS OUR DIET AND DIET IS OUR MEDICINE"
Very helpful information. We need to help those kids and teenagers. It's destroying their lives just because they thought they have a poor body image. Thanks for this.
I reposted this article on the Rouxbe Facebook page. This is important information that needs to be shared and discussed. Well done.
@Chow and Chatter
@Erica
@The Cooking Lady
@OysterCulture
@pegasuslegend
@HoneyB
@Rosa's Yummy Yums
@r4ds card
@C.G. the Foodie
@nora@ffr
@Elra
@5 Star Foodie
@Belinda @zomppa
@All Inclusive Vacations
Thanks so much for your comments!! I much appreciate your thoughts and feedback about these EDs!
@Joy
I agree with you the media isn’t a good example overall for kids and teens.
All day stuck to food channel and recipes may be can lead to hard diets later hehehe
@My Little Space
Probably there's very common a seudo SED between people!
@Soma
An intelligent approach and prevention to the ED theme!
@Cinnamon-Girl Reeni♥
If it's possible, you'd talk to your friend about it
@Fresh Local and Best
As you are showing it, seems orthorexia nervosa!
@Jessie
Yes Jessie! The compulsive eating disorders exist but they aren’t talked, as they deserve, in the media.
@redkathy
Hope nowadays she is completely recovered!
@averagebetty
Sad but true Betty!
@Sophia
A pleasure Sophia you're an example to follow
@Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella
I know several with permarexia too
@Chris
Odd nothing but nothing with sauce! She is loosing most of the food-flavours
@TheChocolatePriestess
Emotional eating is the perfect excuse to overeating and later to feel guilt about it. It's the same reaction with alcohol where many people drink only to forget. I think also that very few people approve their bodies but you'd accept like it is. Thanks for stopping by!
@Divina Pe
Poor body image is one the principal causes of these eating disorders.
@Steve
Thanks a lot for the reposting at Rouxbe facebook page!
Another informative post! Thank you for sharing these with us. I didn't know that much about eating disorders. I think people should give up trying to be just like a model. They should try to be healthy instead. Thank go I don't have any of these diseases!
Gera,
This was a fantastic post! A real eye opener! Thank you so much for sharing!
Jennie
Gera, really interesting post, so good, I think sometimes daugther has some of these, she has 15 a very dandgerous age, I will read again, Thanks a lot Gera. gloria
I don't know alot but I have friends that have had them in the past. They are now super weight freaks,but they did get over it.They had to go to counseling and wanted to be helped.Thanks.
Informative post Gera, thanks,
Being diagnosed in 1994, hospitalized and treated for several years for Anorexia Nervosa, what I'm seeing now is less treatment centers [are closing] and less help for usually young girls or women with these problems, even when I was hospitalized in '94 the Eating Disorder Unit was not making money for the hospital, making it harder to get help–we needed the money for Doctor and Hospital 'upfront' before being excepted into the hospital. Hopefully insurances' help more now.
Seems to be more axceptable today to always be 'dieting' or worried about certain foods, and at very young ages too.
One thing to remember, is what makes it difficult to leave these habits behind…is that our bodies adapt to limited food…and it's very painful physically to eat-stomach aches, cramps etc.. So, be careful about any fananic 'I-have-tos'…so much easier to enjoy moderate intakes, than to re-train your body.
AND, don't over-exercise…any 'I-
have-tos' there–look over carefully and be honest with yourself.
Food is good, life is good. Thanks for letting me share, Janet Rose-Bartlett
Sophia is such a sweetie, too. I think she's also very brave and strong to be so open about all that she has gone through.
Eating disorders are misunderstood and scary to people who do not understand them and therefore people tend to shy away, sit in silence and even ignore the issues.
Hi,
After read this article, i found that you take seriously those causes which are rise from the fast food you are aware people thanks .
It sounds like your sister definitely has some kind of eating disorder not eating a descent sized meal three times a day is a bad sign. If your sister consistently says how much she weighs then she obviously was made fun of for her weight for some time and now she is conscientious about it.
this is a nice blog specially for our children because they eat everyday fast food and they ill frequently i wish you give in future that article which is full cure.
I think people perceive individuals with eating disorders as disgusting, immature, vain and very image driven. Though these people are none of the above, they have an illness and in a lot of cases the eating disorders offer a sense of control
Holy cow that was interesting, there are several I was not aware of. My niece was the youngest anorexic in our state a few years ago, luckily she conquered it
Excellent post. It is so important for people to realize that eating disorders are not just about food but deeper, more serious issues: self-esteem, peer pressure, family problems, fear, abuse, lack of control, so many factors are involved. Hopefully, as "food entertainment" becomes more mainstream, we begin to see a different, more realistic body image being portrayed and that our children develop a friendlier approach to food.
Twitter: trainermikem
Whatever your disorder is just know you are not alone and there is treatment available to overcome this disorder. Action needs to be taken to overcome such disorders as soon as possible.
Mike would love you to read..How to Stop Binge Eating or Compulsive Eating
Brilliant post, Gera. we all need to know that right food combination is important and how eating disorder can cause a lot of health problems. We don’t have to become a picky eater but just have to be sensible about what’s right. Also, if one is already experiencing any of these disorders its safer to consult a doctor.
An very interesting post. Eating disorder are linked to non-food problems, that’s definitely true…
Cheers,
Jay
Snel Afvallen would love you to read..Afvallen Door Water Drinken
Twitter: http://www.jcchristiancounseling.com/
Hey,
It is very nice blog for everyone because everyone has child and all want health kids. Everyone must spent time with their child and eat food very carefully because all fast foods are inglorious for health.
Hi
We must be carefull about eating. We are eating just for fitness not fatness. When we are eating more then there are lots of deceases attack us.
thanks,
Jac Evans would love you to read..Does Medicare Pay for Medical Walkers?
I feel bliss to learn these types of eating dis order Gera. You are right about what you said that all of these eating disorder is caused by our bad action and wrong way of loosing or gaining weight. I am one of those people who skip a good breakfast in order to loose some weight. But in the long run I noticed that this is not a good practice. This year I am aiming for a healthy lifestyle and looking forward to be reading wonderful healthy advice from you.
Jac Morton would love you to read..St. Lucia All Inclusive Honeymoon
Hi
We must eat the food in good manner,Otherwise it may not good for health.
thanks,
Jac Evans would love you to read..St. Lucia All Inclusive Honeymoon
Hello,
“Compulsive Overeating” you can say it is a good or bad habit…good for the those peoples who not eating much and bad for those who already fat…