Last week, I said we would come back to eating disorders and what causes them and how to treat them. First of all, I would like to say that the most common element surrounding all eating disorders is the common presence of a low self esteem
Having an eating disorder is much more than just being on a diet. An eating disorder is an illness that permeates all aspects of each sufferer's life, it is caused by a variety of emotional factors and influences, and has profound effects on the people suffering and their loved ones.
Dieting should be about losing a little bit of weight in a healthy way whereas eating disorders are about how life won't be good until a bit (or a lot) of weight is lost, and there's no concern for what kind of damage you do to yourself to get there.
For those of you out there reading this who can relate to this article, I would advise that you seek appropriate help. For those of you who have daughters or even sons who appear sensitive about their body image, keep an eye on them. It may amount to nothing but for some, it may bring about an explanation to their child's strange behaviour. I will highlight some details this week on anorexic and bulimic cases.
Anorexics suffer from low self-esteem and have a need to control their surrounding and emotions. It can be brought on by stress, anxiety, unhappiness and in some cases a fear that their life is out of control.
Some of the behavioral signs can be: obsessive exercise, calorie and fat gram counting, starvation and restriction of food, self-induced vomiting, the use of diet pills, laxatives or diuretics to attempt controlling weight, and a persistent concern with body image. It is not uncommon for people suffering with anorexia to waver through periods of bulimia (binging and purging) as well. .
There are many similarities in anorexia and bulimia. There also seems to be a direct connection in some people to clinical depression. The eating disorder sometimes causes the depression or the depression can lead to the eating disorder. All in all, eating disorders are very complex emotional issues. Though they may seem to be nothing more than a dangerously obsessive weight concern on the surface, for most men and women suffering with an eating disorder there are deeper emotional conflicts to be resolved.
Men and women who live with bulimia binge and purge. They will eat a large quantity of food in a relatively short period of time and then use behaviors such as taking laxatives or self-induced vomiting -- because they feel overwhelmed in coping with their emotions, or in order to punish themselves for something they feel they should unrealistically blame themselves for.
It is important to realize that what makes a person ulimic - as opposed to anorexic - is not the purging, but the cycle of binging and purging.
Purging may be using laxatives or self-induced vomiting, but there are bulimics who use other inappropriate compensatory behaviors such as compulsive exercise ( excessive jogging or aerobics), to attempt to burn off the calories of a binge, or fasting the day following a binge. It is not uncommon for a man or woman suffering with bulimia to take diet pills in an attempt to keep from binging, or to use diuretics to try to lose weight. A sufferer will often hide or "store" food for later binges, will often eat secretly and can have large fluctuations in their weight.
We can help put you in the right direction. All referrals will be treated in strict confidence and you will see light at the end of the tunnel.
We also wish to let you know the importance of food and how certain foods can trigger us to feel certain ways.
I will cover these types of food in the next few weeks.
If you wish to get further information on above two conditions please get in touch and we will gladly send it on to you.
