How to Better Understand the Three Major Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are a severe matter, constantly evolving and affecting more and more people all around the world. The United States have the largest number of overweight individuals, yet the image promoted and preferred by the cultural society validates only the thin and slim. Busy lifestyles and the stressful environments of modern society are also key factors in disordered eating habits, which gradually develop into actual eating disorders.

For the outsiders looking it, eating disorders may seem like an act of will with a mild addiction, somewhat like smoking - bad for your health, but you can quit anytime if you really want to. In fact, things are not quite so simple. Eating disorders are compulsions, and once they occur they don 't just settle in, but take over. Eating disorders affect both the physical and psychological levels, and go far beyond voluntary control. They can severely affect one 's health, and even lead to untimely death. Such disorders have affected an alarming segment of the population, with three main types of eating disorder:

Anorexia

Anorexia is generally the first thing that comes to mind when speaking about eating disorders: the image of a young woman with dark eyes, and with a face and body resembling a skeleton. Actually, anorexia is actually the least prevalent of the three, afflicting 1 in 100 people, but it was the first one to gain public awareness nationwide. Although it is less prevalent than the others, anorexia is the most dangerous eating disorder. The Academy of Eating Disorders has estimated that the risk of death for people with anorexia is 12 times higher than for people without an eating disorder.

People suffering from anorexia are genuinely terrified of becoming fat, and this fear takes over and controls everything they do, in every aspect of their lives. They are no longer able to percept reality as it is, and regardless of their actual weight they are strongly convinced that they are overweight or on the verge of being overweight. As a result, they simply refuse to eat in order to avoid getting fat. The weight loss caused by anorexia can have severe consequences, jeopardizing one 's health and life. Also, anorexic persons may either purge like people suffering from bulimia, or exercise compulsively.

Bulimia

People struggling with bulimia are easily identifiable by recurrent behaviors of bingeing and purging, almost always done in secret. Bulimic persons eat compulsively, consuming large amounts of food at one sitting, sometimes even tens of thousands of calories. Mortified by getting fat, they purge in order to get rid of all those calories. Purging is usually obtained either by vomiting immediately after eating, by overusing laxatives and diuretics, or by exercising excessively.

After such episodes, bulimics feel extremely worthless and ashamed, but strongly convinced that their weight determines their worth, just like anorexics. However, unlike the people suffering from anorexia, bulimics are more likely to also struggle with alcohol or drug abuse, as well as depression. Bulimia affects as many as 3-4 in 100 young women in the United States.

Binge Eating Disorder (BED)

Binge eating disorder is very similar to bulimia, in what regards the feeling of shame and worthlessness. However, unlike bulimics, people affected by BED are not driven towards purging, but alternate between periods of bingeing followed by periods of rigid dieting. In some cases this behavior keeps their weight within normal parameters, but there are also cases when people with BED gain weight or become obese. As many as 3-8 in 100 people in the U.S. suffer from BED, and as many as 40% of them are men, according to a survey in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, in 1998.

All eating disorders are very dangerous and put your health at high risks, jeopardizing even your life. A normal weight should be obtained through exercise (not excessively), healthy and normal eating habits, and an overall healthy lifestyle, without excesses and abuses. Eating problems continue to affect more and more people all around the world, reaching alarming dimensions.

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