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 By: Shannon Clark
It seems as though everywhere you look these days people are dieting. They are either counting carbs, watching fats, only eating certain food combinations at specific times of the day, or are following some other latest fad. What happens when someone takes their 'healthy eating plan' too far? How can you tell if what started out as a healthy diet has turned into an obsession and something that will lead to a decrease in health? Often it is a fine line.
Everyday women who are simply not happy with their bodies may turn to an eating disorder as a way to feel in control of their life while also becoming more and more popular with the males as well. With males, some of them suffer from the typical eating disorders where they want to be thinner, however a more likely occurrence is for males to want to go the other way and become obsessed with bulking up. This particular form is more evident in the bodybuilding world more than anywhere else. In this part of the article, we will look at the first two types of eating disorder, Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.
Anorexia Nervosa is characterized by a desire to become thinner where the person will go to extreme means to achieve this by denying themselves of food. This form likely starts out with the typical diet, where one is counting calories and then just starts progressively eating less and less in an effort to lose more weight. Pretty soon they find themselves existing on a mere salad and diet coke for the entire day. A person with this disorder does not see their real appearance in the mirror and usually sees someone much larger looking back at them, almost as if they have lost touch with reality.
If the disorder is left to progress long enough, these symptoms can result:
They may feel that they aren't doing what they would like to be doing with their careers or relationships and feel that by being in control of their eating and weight they gain a sense of accomplishment.
If they are so focused on food and weight than they don't have to pay attention to the real issues that are bothering them, therefore they are almost using the disorder as an escape mechanism.
The sad thing is that sometimes these individuals are reinforced for their behavior when they initially start losing weight and are complimented on how they look. This will serve to promote their disorder, pushing them to new levels of starvation and a desire to continue to lose weight.
Nutrition
They may have cut out entire food groups in an effort to lose weight and will now be scared to consume them once again. They need to be put on a meal plan that is providing them with enough calories so that they can begin to gain weight. Often it will work best to slowly increase their calories so it is more psychologically tolerable to the patient, as they will be very frightened at first at the thought of consuming more food again. In some cases, patients will be given liquid calories through a tube if they are refusing to eat and they're problem is severe enough that they could risk death if they lost any more weight. Psychology
By getting to the route of the problem, the counselor and patient can work on ways to reshape the persons thinking so they can learn to value themselves as a person more and not just base their worth on how they look. Relapse
If they are still in the denial stage, chances are that they may gain the weight back, however since the initial problem that caused the disorder is still lingering, they will likely relapse once again. If they are ready to admit there is a problem though and are asking for help, then that shows they are going to work towards getting better and will most likely not want to venture down this path once again.
The next eating disorder that we will look at is called Bulimia Nervosa. This eating disorder is slightly different from that of Anorexia Nervosa in that often the patients can either be underweight or be of normal weight. In Anorexia, a patient has to be underweight to be clinically diagnosed. What happens during this disorder however is that instead of starving themselves in order to get thin, the bulimic purges their food after it has been eaten. This will ensure that their body is not absorbing the calories in the food and thus prevent them from gaining weight. Often, this disorder comes in the form of binge and purge, so the individual will eat enormous amounts of foods at one time and then just go to the bathroom and throw it up or use a laxative.
Often, while engaging in this act, the bulimic tends to experience a great deal of loss of control, which leads to feelings of guilt and worthlessness, thus compounding their problem. In order to be classified as a bulimic, the person must have a minimum average of two binge eating periods per week for a period of at least three months.
Trigger Factor
Weight Control
If this is the case than you would need to approach treatment in a similar fashion as that with anorexia. You would need to find out the underlying reasons why this person feels the need to be so thin and work on changes those thought processes. At the same time you would want to get them on a sensible diet so they can learn to eat comfortably without throwing up their food. Stress, Loss Of Control
It might be a matter of avoiding a certain type of food altogether, if that can simply be done or else trying to find a way for the patient to focus themselves and remain in control when they encounter a situation that would normally lead to a binge, such as stress relief techniques, self talk, or relaxation techniques.
More Common In Athletes
Because they are not used to this they have a hard time with it psychologically and they may find themselves going through periods where they eat whatever it is they are denying themselves of, feel guilty about 'messing up their progress' and then resort to either being sick or using laxatives to get it out of their system. For this reason, it is more preferable for someone involved in these sports to maintain a healthy diet year round and not let themselves put on so much bodyfat in the off season so that way they are not forced to deprive themselves so much when it comes time to get ready to compete once again. Related Articles
In the next part of this discussion, we will talk about the final eating disorder, binge-eating disorder, and discuss eating disorders in the male population.
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Eating disorders come in many different forms and affect many different types of people. Most people commonly associate eating disorders with those in appearance related sports such as gymnastics, ballet dancing, and figure skating or those who make their living by how they look such as models and celebrities; however they can also affect many other people as well.
Symptoms
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