Eating Disorder - Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating

By Michael Russell

An eating disorder is characterized by a strange eating behavior and unhealthy beliefs about eating and weight. It is most commonly found in a young female during her adolescence. It can go undetected for years. You must recognize an eating disorder before the treatment process can begin. There are 3 main types of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by restricted eating or self-starvation. They have a fear of food because they are afraid of becoming overweight. A person with anorexia nervosa refuses to maintain a safe body weight. They try to reach a dangerously low weight by going on extreme diets, fasting and compulsively exercising. Some people even refuse to eat and put themselves in danger of starving to death. They view themselves as being fat even if they are actually emaciated or dangerously thin. They set unreasonably high standards for how their body should look. A person with anorexia nervosa will usually undergo bouts of depression and anxiety. They may also abuse illegal drugs or go through mood swings. Some women may go through three or more consecutive months without a menstrual period. A case of anorexia nervosa usually begins while you are dieting and after a stressful event has occurred. About 1 percent of the American population has anorexia nervosa. About 90 percent of these cases happen to females. Most of these people are Caucasians who come from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds. About 5 to 10 percent of the people who suffer from anorexia nervosa die because of starvation, cardiac arrest, or suicide.

Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder that consists of repeated bouts of binge eating. A person who is a binge eater has an uncontrollable urge to eat excessive amounts of food. This person will believe that he or she is overweight even when they are not. Some of these people induce vomiting, also known as purging, or use laxatives or diuretics to get rid of all of the food that was eaten during binging. Other people might fast and/or exercise excessively instead. People with bulimia nervosa might also abuse illegal drugs, feel depressed, or feel uneasy or fearful for no reason. The medical complications that accompany bulimia nervosa are not as dangerous as those that accompany anorexia nervosa. All of the binging and purging or fasting might result in dental and periodontal problems, heart problems, bleeding in the esophagus and ruptures in the lining of the stomach. About 2 percent of the American population suffers from bulimia nervosa. About 90 percent of these people are female. Most of these people are Caucasians from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds. However, it is getting more common among non-Caucasian groups. Bulimia nervosa occurs mainly to vulnerable people who have already suffered through a traumatizing event.

No one had heard of binge eating disorder until the term was first introduced to the public in 1992. Binge eating disorder consists of repeated bouts of overeating. A person with this disorder has an irresistible need to eat. Eating is usually done in private. After the eating is done, this person usually feels very guilty or remorseful. However, unlike bulimia nervosa, there is no purging, fasting, excessive exercising, or use of laxatives or diuretics. About 3 percent of Americans suffer from the binge eating disorder. Most people with this disorder are adults. It may surprise some people to know that just as many females as males are afflicted with it and it is also prevalent across all ethnic groups. You do not have to be overweight to be diagnosed with this disorder. In spite of this, studies indicate that 40 percent of obese people have the binge eating disorder. These people are at a higher risk for medical complications because of further weight gain. Binge eaters who are also obese might also abuse illegal drugs, suffer from depression, lack self-confidence, or feel that his or her body does not measure up to the standards of modern society. Medical researchers have yet to determine the cause of this eating disorder.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Eating Disorders Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Russell

Do I Really Have Bulimia?

By Heather Colman

Bulimia is term used commonly for an eating disorder called Bulimia nervosa. It is a psychological condition in which a person engages in recurrent binge eating followed by intentionally doing one or more of the following in order to compensate for the intake of the food and prevent weight gain:

• vomiting
• inappropriate use of laxatives, enemas, diuretics or other medication
• excessive exercising
• fasting

The following six criteria should be met for a person to be diagnosed with bulimia.

1. The person feels incapable of controlling the urge to binge, even during the binge itself, and consumes a larger amount of food than a person would normally consume at one sitting.
2. The person purges him or herself of the recent intake, resorting to vomiting, laxatives, diuretics, exercising, etc.
3. The person engages in such behavior at least twice per week for three months.
4. The person is focused upon body image and desperate desire to appear thin.
5. The person does not meet the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa. Some anorectics may demonstrate bulimic behaviors in their illness: binge-eating and purging themselves of food on a regular or infrequent basis at certain times during the course of their disease. Alternatively, some individuals might switch from having anorexia to having bulimia. The mortality rate for anorectics who practice bulimic behaviors is twice that of anorectics who do not.)
6. The person is of normal weight or overweight.

Bulimia is often less about food, and more to do with deep psychological issues and profound feelings of lack of control. Binge/purge episodes can be severe, sometimes involving rapid and out of control feeding that can stop when the sufferers are interrupted by another person or when their stomach hurts from over-extension. This cycle sometimes repeated several times a week or, in serious cases, several times a day. Sufferers often use the destructive eating pattern to gain control over their lives.

Disclaimer: This article is presented for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as medical advice. Please seek the advice of qualified professional if you or someone you know suffers from bulimia.

[Copyright © 2007, Heather Colman. Find more of Heather's articles at eBook Palace. Her articles are available for syndication. Reprinting individual articles is permissible provided no changes are made.]

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In Bulimia Recovery? Do You Want To Beat Bulimia?

By Vathani Navasothy

Are you ready to stop binging & purging and experience bulimia recovery? About half of us give up on our goals during the first week; so if you set a goal to beat bulimia, leave binging and purging in the past and experience bulimia recovery just read on to learn how to stay motivated.

Let's say, "stop binge eating" is your desired goal. However, if this is how you describe your goal, then you will find it hard to achieve because it does not focus on the positive or anything tangible. Focusing on the positive is the way to bulimia recovery.

Reframe your goal by answering these questions:
- What would you like to accomplish today?
- Who can assist you in dealing with this difficulty?
- If a miracle happened tonight, and tomorrow you didn't have this problem, how would you know?
- What would let you know?

Now develop your goal using the steps below. This will help you stay on the path to bulimia recovery.

MAKE YOUR GOAL SMART!

Step 1 - "S" is for Specific.

Notice what you are thinking and feeling just before a binging episode.

Are you always hungry just before a binge takes place? If so decide to embrace a goal like "eat 3 healthy meals a day at 3 to 4 hour intervals."

What does this really mean? It means to insure you obtain the recommended daily amount of nutrients, which are essential for a healthy functioning body: eat three meals per day - leaving 3 to 4 hours between each main meal. This is the way to frame a Specific goal that will lead you to stop binging and start your bulimia recovery.

Step 2 - "M" is for Measurable

Keep track of your progress. To do this; make your goal Measurable. Your goal "eat 3 healthy meals at 3 hour intervals" can be measured very easily.

Step 3 - "A" is for Achievable.

When you break your goal down into small tasks your goal becomes more Achievable!

The way to do this is to create sub-goals - you know... bite-size pieces. For example, take one day at a time. Today plan what you are going to eat tomorrow. The sub-goal could be: go shopping for the ingredients. You are on your way to bulimia recovery!

Step 4 - "R" is for Relevant

Make your goal Relevant to you. Don't do it for others, if you do, you are unlikely to stay with it... do it for YOU. You can beat bulimia and enjoy the fruits of being in bulimia recovery. Binging will be a thing of the past.

Step 5 - "T" is for Timely.

Allow yourself enough Time to achieve your goal. Set a realistic time frame - changing your eating patterns will take 21 days or longer.

For example,

Week 1 - eat three balanced meals a day. If a small healthy snack is necessary between meals... then have one!

Week 2 - focus on success

Week 3 - if you are feeling confident choose to experiment with foods you consider risky or conducive to binging.

Everyone learned to walk before they ran. Make time every day to review your goal to see how you have progressed. It reinforces your motivation.

Start a bulimia recovery treatment program to guide you along the path to success.

Most importantly, recognize your achievements along the way and reward yourself! You deserve the reward of bulimia recovery for your efforts.

Vathani Navasothy - Eating Disorder Counselor and registered expert with National Center for Eating Disorders; shows you how to take the pain out of beating bulimia. To take the ultimate bulimia quiz visit http://www.bulimiahope.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vathani_Navasothy

Mom, Please Help - a True Anorexia - Bulimia Story

By Irina Webster

Well, I guess it was 11 years ago I started to notice something was not right with Amy. She had just turned 13 when I caught her always looking at herself in the mirror. She would ask me if I thought she put on weight. I told her of course not, she always looked just right for her age.

You know, I never even thought anything was wrong I took it as just being a teenage thing and really thought no more about it. I remember myself in those teenage years worrying about my looks and going on diets and silly stuff like that, it was what a lot of my friends did too.

I didn’t even pickup on the fact that Amy would just play with her food at the dinner table and just shift it around her plate, eating very little. Of course I would say to her about not eating her food, but she would say she had a lot to eat at school, or at a friends place or some other excuse and I would fall for it.

Now in hindsight I feel really guilty as a mom for not being more aware of things at that time and I go through the “if only I had noticed back then I maybe could have done something”, but I didn’t and the 10 years of living hell was about to begin.

Amy had always been a beautiful intelligent girl, always thinking of other people, always nice and kind. When she was 8 she would always do things for her grandmother (who had come to live with us) she always asked if she needed help cleaning or if she could do anything for her. She always volunteered to take Grans’ dinner to her and bring back the dirty dishes; nothing was too much for her.

Amy was 12 when her grandmother passed away. We thought she would be really upset but she seemed to handle it probably better that any one, even her younger brother Ben seemed more upset. We put it down to the fact that Gran had been sick for over 6 months and we had explained to her that we thought Gran would not live that much longer. Even at the funeral Amy did not cry but seemed to be in full control, but again I was too upset at losing my Mom, that I did not really pay attention.

My God! What an idiot I was back then how could I miss all the little signals that Amy was sending me? Why didn’t I see the warning signs, how could I have been so stupid? They were all there to be seen but I didn’t notice a thing.

I think what really sent Amy on the trip that nearly cost her life was what to her, became a major disappointment when she was 13. Amy just loved to dance and she was good at it and she had a real passion for dancing. She always said the she wanted to be a dancer when she grew up and if any dancing came on TV she would not miss it. Even if there was a family outing or a birthday party, if dancing was on TV she would refuse to go, until the show had ended.

I have to tell you at this point that Amy was not a typical little 13 years old. She was quite developed for her age with breasts and more of a mature shapes to her body, more like a 16 year old that a 13 year old. Most of her friends were still waiting to develop breasts and were still the thin little girls with no shape. I didn’t know it then but Amy was teased about her body by some of the girls at school, who would call her fat and tell her she had a big bottom. Of course this was not true, Amy was just more developed but to her she was starting to think she was really fat.

It was the 18 November 1996 that I believe was the catalyst for the 10 years of hell we were about to face. Amy had been practicing for months to get into the school dance troop. It was the auditions for the Christmas extravaganza and Amy wanted so badly to get the lead dance role. Two days before the auditions she got ill and by the time her dance trials came she was not in good health. She failed to get the lead role; in fact she danced so badly she did not even make the team. When she was leaving the stage I heard one of the girls who was successful say, I told you you’re too fat.

Amy was inconsolable she screamed and yelled and cried and cried. I tried to consol her by saying there is always next year, it was not your fault you were sick, but nothing could make her stop being upset. All she kept saying was she had tried so hard why was I not picked. Mom I wanted to be in the show why did I not get in, I am too fat, they didn’t pick me because I am too fat.

Amy just sobbed and sobbed all night in her room there was nothing I could do, absolutely nothing. I remember saying to my husband John that she will cry herself out and in a couple of days she would be that lovable girl we knew: how wrong this statement turned out to be.

I have heard Anorexia described by another sufferer as being like getting on an escalator that you can’t get off. It just keeps going and you don’t even know how you got on in the first place, all you know is the floor has changed. You think you are in control at first but then it takes control of you and there is nothing you can do about it. This is basically what happened to Amy, I believe she got on the escalator the night of the auditions looking for something she could control, but only found the devil.

Over the next 12 months Amy seemed to be doing well, at school her grades were up and she was near the top of her class. But she had completely given up her dancing, saying to us that she wanted to concentrate on her school work. Amy had always liked going to school even when she was little, in fact she couldn’t wait to get back to school during the term breaks, looking forward to the new school year. So when she told us she wanted to do better at school we simply believed her, after all her grades reflected all the effort she was putting in. We didn’t realize that what was really happening was she was withdrawing further and further into herself.

She wasn’t eating much and soon started to look thin and scrawny. I never noticed her weight loss as it was winter and she wore bulky clothing that covered her up. It was only well into spring when she started to wear thinner clothes that I really saw the extent of the problem.

I started to worry about this but when I would approach her she would tell me she was just on a diet and don’t bother her. It was at this time the alarm bells started to go off in my head; she was starting to look really emancipated. To me she looked like one of those photos you see of people in the concentration camps, all skin and bone, her hair was lank without luster or life. My God I started to think what is going on here.

It was time for us to confront Amy to see what in the world was happening. We decided to wait until Ben, her brother, was not home as we wanted to have a good talk to Amy and thought it would be a more relaxed atmosphere if he was not there: what transpired was anything but relaxed.

Amy just did not want to talk she exploded, swearing and cursing me telling us that it is her life and if she wanted to diet she would. I said to her that she had no fat to lose she was just skin and bone. She pointed to her shoulders telling me am I blind, look at all the fat on her shoulder. I tried to point out that is the bone in your arm it is not fat. She yelled and screamed calling me an idiot and just wanted to leave her alone, slamming the door in my face.

I was in absolute shock. Tears were streaming down my face. What had just happened, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. John tried to open the door but it was locked he yelled for Amy to open the door and he wanted answers right now. All we got back was a tirade of abuse, he banged on the door but Amy just got worse and worse yelling and screaming, we could hear things being thrown, things smashing and Amy telling us to go away and let her be.

I called my doctor to talk to him; I needed answers to what was going on. He suggested that I come and see him and bring Amy if it was possible, so I made an appointment for the next day. When Amy claimed down I asked her if she wanted to go with me. She refused; saying why would she want to go to see a doctor, there is nothing wrong with her. I wanted to say something but the events of that morning stopped me; I did not want a repeat performance until I at least knew what it is I was dealing with.

I attended the appointment with Dr Thomson explaining what had happened. He asked me a number of questions about Amy and then told me he was sure that she had an Eating Disorder and it was probably Anorexia.

Well! I nearly fell of my chair; I just could not understand how in the world this had happened to Amy. I knew absolutely nothing about anorexia, except what a had read about movie stars who supposedly had all these kinds of problems through the stress of keeping thin for their careers, but Amy was only a little girl. She didn’t have these kind of pressures how could she have anorexia?

Dr Thomson told me what he could and recommended we try and get Amy to see a councilor as soon as we could. He told me people die because of anorexia, it is a psychological problem not an eating one. That the eating is a symptom of a bigger problem and we have to get to the bottom of the problem to fix it. There is nothing he could prescribe only getting her to a councilor was her only chance, or she probably would die.

I sat there completely dumb founded, my little girl could die. I didn’t know what to say my heart was in my mouth, tears were flowing down my face, I was shaking and all colour had drained out of my face. I could see the concern on the doctors’ eyes and he told me just to relax for a moment. She was only 14 how could she die? I went to see the doctor thinking he would tell me it was just a normal teenage thing and not to worry as she would grow out of it: not to be told my baby could die.

We did get Amy to see a councilor a very good one for this kind of problem. For the next 2 years we battled Amy’s devils and we thought we were starting to get on top of things. It was during these sessions that we found out that Amy had taken the death of her grandmother extremely badly and had bottled up all the emotions. Also that missing out on the dance performance coming on top of all the bad emotions was a major turning point in Amy’s life. To us it was a mole hill; to Amy it was Mt Everest.

During the next 2 years I read and studied everything I could find on anorexia and it was during this time I started to think about the secret I was to put into action a little bit later, which was to change everything.

Amy seemed to be hanging in there with the problem and although she did not start to have significant weight gain she did improve, or seem to improve may be a better way of saying things. After about 15 months Amy all of a sudden started to eat more, we were overjoyed. She would even eat more than her brother sometimes and he was a big eater. We thought at last we were getting on top of this thing and even though she did not put on weight we were not that concerned. We simply thought that after nearly 4 years of virtual starvation it would take the body a little while to revert to normal metabolism.

We never even noticed that Amy had started to binge eat and then purge herself, not only after dinner but after every meal. I was well aware that this could happen and I did keep an eye out but Amy was very cunning and sneaky, going to the bathroom down stairs in the pool area where she knew no one would go. Of course we didn’t find out until it was too late.

It was August 24th 1999 we had to go away for 3 weeks on business. We received a phone call from my sister Betty who was staying looking after the house and kids. She said that Amy had collapsed at home and was in hospital and we better get back as things are not looking good. Well! I totally panicked, I had promised myself that no way was I going to let Amy die and now there was a strong possibility that it just may happen. The recriminations started to come thick and fast in my head, why did I go away, why didn’t I see what was happening, it is all my fault, what a bad mother I am, I was worried sick.

We got to the hospital 12 hours later catching the first plane out we could get. Amy was on a drip and looked very ill, my heart fell, I was so worried this was the worst I have ever seen Amy looked and I feared of going to lose her. Amy was in and out of conciseness, I just sat there and prayed to God that he let her live.

The doctors told me her potassium level was 1.9 very low: low enough in fact that her heart could stop beating. This was the worst time in my life, to sit there and think you are about to lose a child is the most emotional traumatic thing you can go through, and my heart goes out to all those who have sat in my position.

Amy pulled through I believe with the help of God. Later I found out that Amy was vomiting up to 15 times a day over the 3 weeks while we were gone and her system just reacted to the abuse and she collapsed.

Although this was a very traumatic time for me and all the family, it did have one very positive outcome. I formulated the secret that was about to change everything for us and more importantly Amy. It is not a quick fix but with dedication, love and hope, I believe, it will work for everyone.

More about Amy on http://www.mom-please-help.com

Dr Irina Webster is the Director of Women Health Issues Program which covers different areas of Women Health.

Dr Irina Webster has a wholistic approach to medicine and her favorite area is to discover natural treatments for Women health problems and share these treatments and methods with other people.

Dr Irina Webster believes that the majority of women health problems can be treated naturally without drugs or surgical treatment.

Dr Irina Webster started her medical career in 1987 after graduating from high school with distinctions. She then enrolled in the Medical University of Archangelsk situated in North Russia, graduating in 1993. Irina then started her internship at The Komi Republic Children’s Hospital 1993 to 1994 where she studied to become a Pediatrician. Then she did a lot of courses to specialise in Women Health. In year 2001 Irina migrated to Australia. There she has been working as a medical doctor in women health area for 3.5 years. At present she does Eating Disorder natural treatment research.

Dr Irina's web-site: http://www.womenhealthsite.com

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