Beware of Eating Disorder Symptoms - Excessive Dieters Warned!

Eating disorders can be referred to both compulsive overeating or avoid eating. An individual is said to have eating disorder when he experiences severe disturbances in eating behavior. Eating disorders usually appear during adolescence, but one may have developed it earlier, e.g. during childhood. This problem is gaining much concern as it is very dangerous and will affect both physical and mental health of an individual. The most common eating disorders are Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder (BED).

Anorexia Nervosa is potentially life-threatening as it involved by self-starvation and excessive weight loss, typically 15% below the ideal weight for an individual’s height and age. Anorexics typically starve themselves to be thin as they are usually driven by a fear of becoming overweight and a distorted body image. They are intensively feared of being “fat” even though underweight. Anorexia nervosa can be deadly if left untreated. The mortality rate for anorexics is about 6% and is the highest of any mental illness, about half of those due to suicide. It may also lead to other serious physical health problems. Heart failure, osteoporosis, severe dehydration, kidney failure, hair loss, muscle loss and weakness are among the medical complications which anorexics may experience.

Bulimia nervosa is a cyclical and recurring pattern of binge eating and purging. An individual with bulimia will compulsively over-eat, followed by compensatory behavior such as fasting, excessive exercising and purging (e.g. self-induced vomiting, laxative or diuretic abuse) to compensate for the excessive caloric intake. He or she may experience weight fluctuations, but seldom experiences the low weight as in anorexia nervosa. Vomiting involved in bulimia may cause the esophagus to rupture and severely inflamed, as well as gastric disturbances. Erosion of tooth enamel might occur due to the stomach acids released during frequent vomiting. Chronic irregular bowel movements and constipation will be another side effect due to laxative abuse.

Binge Eating Disorder (also known as Compulsive Overeating) is characterized by recurrent episodes of binge-eating even though an individual is feeling comfortably full. However, it does not followed by purging. Therefore, binge-eating sufferers are always overweight or obese. People with binge-eating disorder often experience guilt, shame and self-hatred resulted from their binge-eating behavior. They may also feel distress which can contribute to more episodes of compulsive overeating. Binge-eating sufferers with obesity are at higher risk of having psychological illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and personality disorders. They are also predisposing to various diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases and hypertension.

Recent study of U.S. high school students shows that eating disorders may be contagious. Researchers found that eating disorder symptoms such as binging, severe self-starvation, dieting, exercising and diet pill use clustered with counties, especially among female students. Peer pressure, information sharing and behavior modeling among students are possible mechanisms suggested by researchers that resulted in this phenomenon.

Eating disorder can stem from various causes, either physically, psychologically and, sadly, intentionally. The cause for eating disorder which resulted from weight loss is usually the psychological causes of anorexia. Anorexics have severe anxiety over their body image and therefore they are very concern about their body weight. They actually see themselves as being fat even they are considered too skinny for outsiders. It is more difficult to treat as it involves psychological treatment. Excessive dieting may also lead to nutrients deficiency, which will resulted in the development of anorexia as a deficiency symptom.

Next >> Warning Signs of Eating Disorders

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