Eating disorders are serious conditions related to persistent eating behaviors that negatively impact your health, your emotions, and your ability to function in important areas of life.
Common eating disorders include; anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder.
Anorexia Nervosa
People with this disorder may see themselves as overweight, even when they are dangerously underweight. Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental disorder.
Symptoms include;
- Extremely restricted eating
- Extreme thinness
- Intense fear of gaining weight
Bulimia nervosa
People with this type of disorder have recurrent and frequent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food and feeling a lack of control over these episodes. This is usually followed by forced vomiting, excessive use of laxatives, fasting, excessive exercise, or a combination of these behaviors. People with bulimia nervosa may be slightly underweight, normal weight, or overweight.
Symptoms include:
- Chronically inflamed and sore throat
- Swollen salivary glands in the neck and jaw area
- Worn tooth enamel
- Acid reflux disorder and other gastrointestinal problems
- Intestinal distress and irritation from laxative abuse
- Severe dehydration from purging of fluids
Binge eating disorder
People with binge eating disorder lose control over his or her eating. Unlike bulimia nervosa, periods of binge-eating are not followed by purging, excessive exercise, or fasting. As a result, people with binge eating disorder are often overweight or obese.
Symptoms include:
- Eating an unusually large amount of food in a specific amount of time, such as a 2 hour period
- Eating when you are full or not hungry
- Eating fast during binge episodes
- Eating until you are uncomfortably full
- Eating alone to avoid embarrassment
- Frequently dieting, possibly without a weight loss.
Treatments and therapies
People with eating disorders are at a higher risk of committing suicide. And they can often have other mental disorders such as (depression or anxiety) or problems with substance abuse. Complete recovery is possible.
- Individual, group and or family psychotherapy
- Medical care and monitoring
- Nutritional counseling
- Medications
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