Things To Know About Eating Disorders And How Can We Avoid It

During puberty, a person’s body undergoes different kinds of changes. These changes can either be physical, mental, chemical, and social. This is where we experience changes in our body, our mood, and most specifically in our outlook in our body and appearance. During this time, a teenager feels more conscious about his/her body and what he or she looks like. It is not uncommon for teenagers to feel criticized by their peers regarding the way they look, such as if they are obese or too slim. This is where eating disorders first start to appear.

Usually, an eating disorder starts when a person does not consume the right amount of servings that his/her body needs every day. In extreme cases of eating disorders, people will sometimes go into pica, or eat inedible foods such as clay, paper, metal, and many more. This condition is usually classified as a mental disorder. Other than this, people suffering from eating disorders may also practice binge eating, purging and/or vomiting. The continuous practice of this binge-purge relationship can result into a more serious type of eating disorder called anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, two condition, which if left untreated, can cause death.

A person with anorexia nervosa often feels that she is obese or overweight even if she is very slim. They are so afraid to gain weight that they starve themselves. Often, a person with anorexia nervosa will only eat a small portion of a meal that cannot sustain his/her daily nutritional requirements. Persons with this kind of condition suffer from rapid weight loss, hair loss, and occurrences of lanugo or fine hair, amenorrhea (in females), weakness, and brittle skin. Though anorexia and bulimia are not exclusively restricted to females; statistically, females are more prone to this kind of eating disorder because they are often the ones who are more self-conscious.

Bulimia, is a kind of eating disorder wherein a person has restricted herself from eating and then eats a large amount of food afterwards. Then, she will feel guilty about eating such a large amount of food that she induces vomiting, or what is often referred to as purging. Bulimic persons are hard to identify because they often still have the normal body weight of your average person. You can only notice if a person is bulimic if she had some dental erosion, some scars on her hand because of the self-induce vomiting, dehydration because of vomiting, and/or suffers from ulcer.

People with this kind of condition must seek medical treatment immediately. Although many people suffering from this condition deny that there is a problem, family members must also cooperate in helping them seek the best course of treatment. It is highly advisable that a person who suffers with an eating disorder seek help from a doctor or counselor to help get the right nutrition that he/she needs. In addition to medical treatment, it is also advisable that those suffering form eating disorders also undergo counseling and therapy in order to correct their negative outlook regarding their body image.