Getting to Grips With Eating Disorders |
| Date Added: July 07, 2010 07:41:39 AM |
| Author: vagleria54 |
| Category: Health: Weight Issues |
| An eating disorder is an illness which permeates all facets of each sufferer's life, is triggered by various emotional factors and impacts. In this article we will touch upon Anorexia and Bulimia. Eating disorder sufferers are characterized as having a low self-esteem and frequently an enormous need to gain strict control over their emotions and surroundings. The eating disorder, Anorexia, is a unique reaction to a variety of external and internal conflicts, such as strain, anxiety, unhappiness and feeling as if life is out of control. Anorexia is a negative way to deal with these emotions. A person suffering from Anorexia may be extremely sensitive about being fat, or have a deep fear of becoming fat - although not all Anorexia sufferers have this fear. They may fear to lose control over the quantity of food they consume, accompanied by the craving to gain stringent control over their emotions and reactions to these emotions. This makes them turn to obsessive dieting and starvation as a means to control not only their weight, but what they feel and how they react. Some also think that they do not deserve pleasures of life, and will stay away from situations related to pleasure (including eating). Some of the behavioral signs can be: calorie and fat gram counting, starvation and limitation of food, obsessive physical exercise, self-induced vomiting, the use of weight loss pills, diuretics or laxatives to attempt controlling body weight, and a constant concern about the body image. Bulimia sufferers seek binge and purge episodes - they will eat a large amount of food in a relatively short period and then use behaviors such as fetching laxatives or diuretics or self-induced vomiting - because they feel overwhelmed in handling their emotions, or to punish themselves. Bulimia sufferers may seek binge and purge episodes to avoid and let out feelings of anger, depression, stress or concern. Repeated episodes of binging followed by tremendous guilt and purging (laxatives or self-induced vomiting), a feeling of lacking control over food consumption, regularly engaging in stringent dieting and physical exercise, the misuse of diuretics or laxatives, and/or diet pills and a persistent concern about the way they look can all be warning signs someone is having Bulimia. The two eating disorders have a lot of similarities, the commonest being the cause. They are complex emotional problems. Though they may seem to be nothing more than a dangerously obsessive body weight concern on the surface, for most men and women suffering from an eating disorder there are more profound emotional conflicts to be resolved. |
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