How To Spot The Signs And Symptoms of Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses that can have disastrous consequences if left untreated. According to the National Eating Disorder Association, an estimated 20 million women and 10 million men in America suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lives.
While most people associate eating disorders with severe weight loss, there are actually a variety of different types of eating disorders, all of which come with their own set of signs and symptoms. If you or someone you know is exhibiting any of the following signs and symptoms, it may be time to seek professional help.
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, it can be difficult to know what to look for. Here are some signs and symptoms of different types of eating disorders. If you see any of these signs in yourself or someone else, please seek professional help. Remember, there is always hope for recovery!
What Is A Eating Disorder?
Eating disorders are serious, unhealthy eating patterns that impact a person’s physical and social well-being. Eating disorders are marked extremes, such as an extreme reduction in what a person eats, extreme overeating or feelings of extreme distress or concern about body weight or shape.
Three main types of eating disorder
The main types of eating disorders are:
Anorexia nervosa
Bulimia nervosa
Compulsive overeating/binge eating
These frequently appear during adolescence or young adulthood and women and girls are much more likely than males to develop an eating disorder.
Anorexia nervosa
This occurs when a person refuses to maintain minimal, healthy body weight. The condition is characterised by extreme thinness, an intense fear of gaining weight and extremely disturbed eating behaviour.
Some people lose weight by dieting and exercising excessively; others lose weight by self-induced vomiting or misusing laxatives or diuretics. They see themselves as overweight, even when they are clearly malnourished.
Bulimia nervosa
This is characterised by a binge-purge cycle. This involves recurrent and frequent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food (binge-eating) and feeling a lack of control over the eating.
This binge-eating is followed by a type of behaviour that compensates for the binge such as purging, vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or diuretics, fasting and/or excessive exercise.
Overeating/binge eating
This is characterised by recurrent binge-eating episodes during which a person feels the loss of control over their eating.
Unlike bulimia, binge-eating episodes are not followed by purging, excessive exercise or fasting. As a result people with binge-eating disorders often are overweight or obese. They also experience guilt about the binge-eating which can lead to more binge eating.
Signs and symptoms of bullimia nervosa
The signs and symptoms of bulimia nervosa include:
Chronically inflamed and sore throat due to vomiting, swollen glands in the neck and below the jaw, abrasions on the back of one hand.
This happens because the person’s teeth graze that hand whenever they stick their fingers down their throat to induce vomiting.
Worn tooth enamel and increasingly sensitive and decaying teeth as a result of exposure to stomach acids. Intestinal distress and irritation from laxative abuse. Kidney problems from diuretic abuse. Severe dehydration from purging of fluids.
Three possible causes of anorexia
Possible causes include psychological and emotional factors. Losing weight can be means of boosting the person’s self-confidence. Many people with an eating disorder have other co-existing psychological issues so avoiding meals can be a way of dealing with these issues.
Formative experiences and interpersonal factors: difficulty expressing emotions and feelings. Some families do not allow the expression of emotion and a person may in time express their anger or sadness through their obsession with weight.
There may be a history of being teased or ridiculed based on size or weight, this is usually triggered in a person’s early teens.
Social and cultural factors: these pressures are reinforced by media, glorify thinness and place value on obtaining the perfect body.
Some of the ways an eating disorder may affect the individual and their life
Low self-esteem and distorted body image – people with anorexia believe that their value as a person is related to their weight, how they look and have a distorted view of what they look like.
Secondly, they will practise a type of behaviour known as body-checking which involves weighing themselves, measuring themselves, such as waist size and checking their body in the mirror.
Finally, they might have low self-esteem so may withdraw from relationships and become distant from members of the family and friends.
Impact on school, work-life and outside interests – Anorexia can also affect the person’s work or how well they perform their job. They may find it difficult to concentrate, and they might lose interest in their usual activities. They may have few interests, even though they seem busier than usual.
Physical effects – Anorexia will have consequences for a person’s physical well-being. The effects are related to the effects of starvation. It affects every system in the body, muscles, skeleton, digestion, organ development and functioning. It can have a damaging effect upon the heart, brain and immune system.
How an eating disorder may affect an individual’s family and friends
Anger and frustration – family and friends may not understand why their loved one is starving themselves to death. Many find themselves saying in frustration ‘why don’t they just eat?’.
Worry and desperation – watching a loved one’s health decline can be a constant worry and concern. Family and friends will try all sorts of tactics in order to persuade their loved ones to eat more or to cease binging.
Guilt – Family and friends will punish themselves with self-criticism and unrealistic expectations. They may tell themselves that they should have stopped the disorder from happening in the first place.
Some of the interventions that are used to treat BULLIMIA disorder
Bulimia – The first step in their treatment is psycho-education/self-help. The person’s therapist may recommend a structured self-help programme that involves the person learning more about their condition.
Interpersonal therapy – IPT may be offered if the person has not improved after cognitive behaviour therapy. However, IPT can take longer than CBT to achieve comparable results.
Medication – The person’s doctor may offer them a trial of antidepressant medication. Antidepressants can help reduce the number of times the person binge eats and then purges. However long-term effects on people’s eating problems are not yet known.
What others could do to help an individual recover from a specific eating disorder
Get to know the warning signs – in anorexia there are lots of signs such as weight loss or the person eating much less than they used to. The person may make excuses about eating somewhere else or refuse to eat certain types of foods.
Talk to the person and let them know you care – approach the person in a calm and non-threatening manner. Ensure there is privacy and time to talk.
Avoid accusations – do not argue about whether or not there is a problem or insist that someone has anorexia or bulimia. Power struggles are not helpful.
Examples of local sources of support that should be available to an individual experiencing an eating disorder
Finally, if you’re in need of support here are three suggestions to help you.
The person’s GP – The GP will consider the person’s history, weight and height and try to establish what problems and behaviours are around managing food and weight. They will probably refer the person to the Community Health Team.
The Community Mental Health Team – The CMHT is made up of a number of mental health professionals, such as psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and Community Psychiatric Nurses.
They will repeat the GP assessment but in more detail and will help establish whether a referral to a specialist in eating disorders is necessary.
Hospital outpatient services – in most cases a person will be referred to their local hospital as an outpatient. They will be given an appointment to visit members of the specialist eating disorder team.
They will assess the physical risk to the person and monitor their weight and nutritional intake, provide appropriate talking treatments and prescribe necessary medication.
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