Last week, we touched on the two main eating disorders. I am now going to cover the remaining ones, which a number of you may relate to. These are: compulsive overeaters; binge eaters and compulsive exercisers. The first two come about mainly from low self esteem and the third one comes about usually when someone has lost weight and then carries on "dieting" to keep body weight low.

People suffering with compulsive overeating have what is characterized as an "addiction" to food, using food and eating as a way to hide from their emotions, to fill a void they feel inside, and to cope with daily stresses and problems in their lives.

People suffering with this disorder tend to be overweight, and are usually aware that their eating habits are abnormal. A person suffering from compulsive overeatering is at risk of a heart attack, high blood-pressure and cholesterol, kidney disease and/or failure, arthritis and bone deterioration, and stroke.

Reasons for binge eating can be similar to those of compulsive overeating and they are under the same health risks.

I often hear the question, "How can there be such a thing as too much exercise?" or "How can exercise hurt me?" As with eating disorders, a compulsive exerciser will find time, at any cost, to exercise. The main goal of the exercise is burning calories and "relieving the guilt" from just having eaten or binged. Those with compulsive exercise behaviors will feel tremendously guilty when they cannot exercise and almost never do it for fun. This addictive behaviour is putting the individual's physical safety, emotional health and other areas of their life (job, school, family, etc...) in jeopardy because of the compulsive nature of the exercise.

Some of the physical dangers that may become an issue for someone exercising too much can be: dehydration, stress fracture and osteoporosis, degenerative arthritis, amenorrea (loss of menstrual cycle) and reproductive problems, and heart problems.

For the average individual, healthy exercise is considered to be 20 to 30 minutes of activity (walking, slow jogging, weight training, aerobics, bicycling, etc.) 4 or 5 times per week. The goal of exercise is to keep the body healthy while remaining fun.

By itself, it is dangerous, as much so as restricting, binging or purging. Combining restriction (with or without purging) or binging and purging with compulsive exercise can quickly lead to a great number of serious danger (kidney failure, heart attack) and possibly death.

All above disorders can be recognised by any or all of the following;

1. Obsession with weight and complaining of weight problems (even if "average" weight or thin).

2. Obsession with calories and fat content of foods.

3. Obsession with continuous exercise.

4. Visible food restriction and self-starvation.

5. Visible bingeing and/or purging.

6. Isolation. Fear of eating around and with others.

7. Vague or secretive eating patterns.

8. Keeping a "food diary" or lists that consists of food

9. Pre-occupied thoughts of food, weight and cooking.

10. Dizziness and headaches.

11. Frequent soar throats and/or swollen glands.

12. Low blood pressure.

13. Loss of menstrual cycle.

14. Constipation or incontinence.

15. Mood swings. Depression. Fatigue.

16. Insomnia. Poor sleeping habits

If you are suffering from any of the above conditions, please contact your doctor who will refer you to the right person to help you control and solve the conditions.

For the over-exerciser who has become fixated on what they are doing and now wish to slow the pace down, the good news is that this is possible. Please realize that this constant timetable and commitment of exercise can not be maintained long term. Your home life and other areas of your life will start to suffer.

Please feel free to speak to me as this is an area personally experienced by myself and one in which I could see no harm. Close friends and family had expressed concerns over my obsessive need to exercise on several occasions but it always fell on deaf ears. Having been in this position and met others similar to myself, we will come back to this important area of weight loss and exercise again next week.