While eating disorders are a cause of alarm, with timely and right treatment plans, kids can bounce back to their normal eating habits and schedule.
Anorexia nervosa involves self-starvation, which leads to excessive weight loss. Bulimia nervosa involves binge eating and later self-induced vomiting to counter the effects of the excessive food consumption. Binge eating disorder involves overeating over which the person feels no control. These three are extreme forms of eating disorders generally found in teens and adolescents, which can lead to serious health problems. There are also other lesser-known eating disorders like orthorexia nervosa and anorexia athletica.
There are many warning signs and symptoms of eating disorders. Behavioural signs may include repetitive or excessive dieting, secretive eating, changes in food habits, social isolation, lying about food habits etc. Physical signs of eating disorders can be sudden loss or gain of weight, fatigue, sensitivity to cold etc. Psychological signs are obsession with body image, fear of weight gain, poor self-esteem, depression, meal times anxiety, feeling out of control around food and in general.
Singers Demi Lovato and Lady Gaga have openly talked about their bulimia (A serious eating disorder marked by binging, followed by methods to avoid weight gain) and anorexia. Famous people and their eating disorders often becomes news. But these are not good examples to follow.
An article in the website helpguide.org states, "Over time, people with eating disorders lose the ability to see themselves objectively and obsessions over food and weight come to dominate everything else in life."
For more, you can browse through many useful articles in this ClipBook.
Anorexia Nervosa involves starvation. The body is denied the essential nutrients it needs to function normally, so it is forced to slow down all of its processes to conserve energy. This “slowing down” can have serious medical consequences.
Although not recognised formally by the standard mental health diagnostic manuals, the term Anorexia Athletica is commonly used in mental health literature to denote a disorder characterised by excessive, obsessive exercise.
Binge eating disorder is characterized by compulsive overeating in which people consume huge amounts of food while feeling out of control and powerless to stop.
Bulimia nervosa is a serious, life-threatening eating disorder characterized by a cycle of bingeing and compensatory behaviours such as self-induced vomiting designed to undo or compensate the effects of binge eating.
Night eating syndrome is an eating disorder, characterized by a delayed circadian pattern of food intake. It is not the same as binge eating disorder, although individuals with night eating syndrome are often binge eaters.
Where Anorexia Nervosa is an obsession with the quantity of food you eat, you can also be obsessed with eating foods of a certain quality. People with Orthorexia Nervosa remain consumed with what types of food they allow themselves to eat and feel...
It is important to know the warning signs of an eating disorder. These may indicate that an eating disorder is developing or is being experienced in full. Below are lists of behavioural, physical and psychological signs or changes which often acco...
Are you worried that a friend or family member might have an eating disorder? Eating disorders aren't really about food or weight. They are attempts to deal with emotional and stress-related issues. You can't force a person with an eating disorder...
