What Exactly is an Eating Disorder

Posted on 30. Jan, 2012 by admin in Health & Medicine

Anorexia Nervosa

The formal name of this psychiatric disease is Anorexia Nervosa, but most people shorten it to Anorexia. Contrary to the medical term General Anorexia, which refers to people who are unable to maintain a normal body weight, Anorexia Nervosa (now referred to simply as Anorexia) refers to people who refuse to maintain a healthy body weight. At least fifteen percent of an anorexic’s body weight is lost proportionately to their height, and one who suffers from Anorexia has an irrational or intense fear of gaining the weight back. Anorexics oftentimes weigh themselves several times a day, consider themselves to be grossly overweight even when emaciated, attach their self-worth to their weight or appearance, wear baggy clothes to hide the fact that they are grossly underweight, stop having menstrual cycles (or don’t have them at all if the disease begins before puberty).

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia Nervosa, better known as Bulimia, differs from Anorexia and is characterized by binge eating that is followed with some sort of purge, either through the use of laxatives and diuretics or by vomiting. Some bulimics also exercise heavily in between binges, fast and/or diet strictly to reduce the caloric load on their bodies

For a formalized diagnosis the binge-purge cycle has to have occurred at least twice a week for three months. A negative self-image and obsessiveness with one’s weight and body are also necessary criteria.

How do Eating Disorders Evolve?

Anorexia
How one with anorexia progresses through the disease differs dramatically between person to person. Some people recover completely after one small bout, whereas others fight over a longer period of time with intermittent anorexic episodes with periods of normal weight in between. Others still worsen over many years, eventually ending in death.

Women with anorexia are more than ten times more likely to die than women of the same age without any signs of anorexia. If death does occur, it is usually brought on because of complications with anorexia, such as starvation, electrolyte imbalances or suicide.

Bulimia
Because many bulimics carry a normal weight for their height and age, they do not suffer the same effects of starvation that anorexics do. However, all of the purging symptoms are apparent and ravage the body over the long-term.

One of the first, most apparent symptoms that show bulimia has evolved from a one-time event to a longer-standing history is the erosion of tooth enamel and the lining of the throat and esophagus. It is because of this that dentists are often the first to know one suffers from bulimia.

The most serious consequences of bulimia are tears in the lining of the esophagus, rupture of the stomach, kidney or heart failure, and cardiac arrest.

There is little known about the standard course of bulimia, however several studies have shown that most people who have bulimia suffer for a number of years before spontaneous improvement occurs.

What causes An Eating Disorder?

For over a hundred years, doctors have tried to determine a solitary cause for eating disorders in general, whether it was biological, psychological or cultural. Several theories have taken on precedence throughout the years and depending on the times, but none have weathered time separately. Rather all three aspects work symbiotically together to create the signs and symptoms that create an eating disorder.

Although many eating disorder sufferers display similar affectations of their specific disease once well-advanced, the beginnings and causes differ dramatically. What creates the disease may not be readily apparent at first or during a crisis, but after the disease has taken hold it may prove easily discerned.

It is now widely recognized that there are no set criteria that cause an eating disorder. In some people, a crisis or major life event precedes the illness, while in others there are no such triggers Some lived in families where food was a predominant conversation piece, while others did not.

Still, many theories abound as to the causes of an eating disorder. One of the leading models states that there are three spheres of factors that influence whether or not someone develops an eating disorder social, psychological and biological. Therefore, if someone had a genetic predisposition to an eating disorder, had an early experience that affected their relationship with food and/or their body image, and found themselves socially influenced, these may be seen as causal. Yet, other factors would also have to come into play, such as dieting during puberty that lead to weight loss or mental changes that led to positive reinforcement of the dieting behavior.

However, causes differ greatly from contributing factors, of which there are many. Families who focus excessively on overeating or being overweight, controlling parents, sexual assault, participation in certain sports, or being exposed to a culture that places high value on weight loss can all contribute to one’s eating disorder, but they are not causes in and of themselves.

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Tags: anorexia, bulimia, disorder, eating, eating disorder, health, mental