Intentional Eating Disorder

It is a way of life that whenever you look at yourself on the mirror you make it a point that you lay your eyes on a proud, seemingly pretty face. Before you go out to work or attend your classes in school, you ask everyone you see in the house if your look is right in its proper place. This pressure of looking good in the eyes of the public and well, at times considered as your very own fanatic audience tends to lead some individuals into dangerous territories. Mechanisms in order to maintain or attain that oh so gorgeous body in women; nowadays even in men are being pushed through. The field of medicine is constantly in contact with certain eating disorders. One of which that you are about to know is done intentionally.

Folks meet anorexia nervosa, the lack of desire to consume that body fuel called food. This sickness involves the psyche as fear of putting on a few pounds or more settles in. Due to this fear, the person is established with decreased body weight and there is a psychological breakdown due entirely to distorted body image. There are various gruelling mechanisms en route to the objective of not gaining weight. There is the painful purging of consumed food, extreme fasting ways, aggravated exercise program, and well the famous engagement with dieting procedures and drugs.

This unpleasant way of facing food affects the person in every angle and aspect which can gravely lead to death. Make sure that you get this correct. We’re talking about anorexia nervosa not anorexia only. The two are very different as in most cases they are considered as of conceptualization. Anorexia is simply having a decrease in appetite.

Come and let’s take a closer look at an individual with this uncalled for eating habit. The physical presentation of anorexia nervosa are well-documented extreme loss of weight, decreased growth rate, amenorrhea or absence of menstruation in young girls, impotence and insufficient libido in guys, a deficient metabolic rate leading to slow heart rate and hypotension, hair thinning, electrolyte level imbalance such as in potassium and zinc, decreased WBC count, compromised immune system functionality, constipation, pallor or pale complexion, bone and muscle weakness and wasting, headaches, dry skin and oral mucosa, and sunken eyes.

The person’s psychological aspect can be seen as having too much basis and reliance on how he looks or appears physically, thoughts are extremely focused on the relationship between food and body weight, denial that present drop in weight cannot do any harm, full of misconceptions about self and others, and doubtful about image perception especially for himself. Moreover, the person’s emotions are shaped by having a very low self-confidence and reliance, sudden changes in moods, depression which can go severe, and having a really good scare out of gaining extra ounces of insulation.

The person’s behavior would then be inclined to too much secrecy involving exercise and dieting regimen, ill-fated attempts to hurt himself or even commit suicide, routine way of checking weight and image progression, and increase eagerness to exercise on high levels and regular schedules without consuming proper dietary requirements.

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Initial Steps When Your Child Has Eating Disorder

As a parent the first step to effectively intervene in your child's eating disorder is to understand that what he or she experiencing is not merely a food or weight problem. "Healthier eating habits and stronger willpower are not the missing ingredients that will make the problem disappear," says Michele Siegel, author of the book “Surviving an Eating Disorder.”
Eating disorders are actually a psychological problem that involves the use of food intake and weight control to solve hidden emotional difficulties. Being a psychological problem, eating disorder calls for more attention to your child. Your goal is to guide him or her to make responsible choices. However, each eating-disordered child situations calls for various approaches. Some situation calls for immediate openness with the disorder while some calls for backing off at first.

When your child has eating disorder, family rules should evolve. Changing original family rules will help the family adjust to the disordered child and develop a healthy attitude toward food and dieting.

How would you bring up the situation to the rest of family members? What are the things you will say to your child? First approaches requires planning in advance as conversation can cause discomfort that can potentially harm your child's recovery. The following guidelines according to Siegel might help:

1. Think through who the best person is to do the talking - Decide with your spouse if you should be the one to talk, or if you should be there, or you should be not. Decide who would have an easier time talking to your child. Don’t involve the rest of the family until after your child is spoken with privately.
2. Pick a time to talk when you are feeling calm - Your feeling may interfere with your achieving the goals that you have in mind. Do not bring up your concerns in a middle of a fight, you are angry, upset, or hurt. Confrontations will resort a person to be defensive and shutting down potential lines of communication. He or she might perceive your communication as an criticism or attack.
3. Pick a time when you know you won't be interrupted - Time pressure may limit you and your child to discuss the situation. Pick a time when both of you have as much time as is needed to talk.
4. Consider writing down what you want to say ahead of time - It is inevitable to feel anxious opening up the subject of eating disorders to your child. Take time to practice your lines to him or her. Write a note and plan your lines.

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The Danger of Delayed Diagnosis of Eating Disorder in Children

Eating disorder problems are also affecting children. The dangerous side to it is that not too many parents and even doctors are aware of it. Often, eating disorder is associated with young adults and adults who tend to regulate eating abnormally to achieve weight loss goals. Children could also exhibit signs of suffering from eating disorder problems. Unfortunately, such problems are not often taken seriously unless the condition leads to life-threatening events.

Many cases of eating disorder in children are left undiagnosed until the condition has taken hold, often with very disastrous consequences. This could be because there are significant gaps in awareness within the community and health-care system levels. The problem could also be worsened with generic diagnostic tools that often lead to misdiagnosis. The main and exact reason behind eating disorder problems in children remains a mystery these days. It could be that at early ages, children are now becoming aware that obese and overweight people are not looked at with admiration and respect by the society in general.

There is another interesting twist to this issue. A published research in Medical Journal of Australia in 2009 has found that more boys are experiencing eating disorder problems than girls of the same age. Such conditions remain undiagnosed until such boys are subjected to really serious and possibly life-threatening complications. Worse, most doctors do not expect that boys would have such problems because traditionally, males are not conscious and caring much about vanity. The times have really changed.

Take note that experts underline the fact that serious complications could be effectively avoided if eating disorder problem is diagnosed and dealt with early. Children who are treated properly for eating disorder have about 70% to 80% more chances of getting completely healed in a year. About 90% improve conditions in five years. In contrast, a typical adult could have a recovery rate of just about 50% in five years.

Moreover, eating disorder is not all about food. Dieting and eating disorder behaviors are often coming along with anxiety and stress. There are suspicions that children with higher stress levels are more vulnerable to the temptations of unnecessary dieting and weight loss. Media messages have been proven to make matters worse because young children are getting the impression that beauty and social acceptance is synonymous to appearance and ideal weight. This must be dealt with accordingly.

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The other side of good looks

No doubt. Beauty and sexiness sells. You see it on the red carpet as Hollywood stars prep up to upstage one another with their model-thin bodies clad in designer gowns. You see it in the way looks win over talent when it comes to reality shows and even in the music industries.

People like Jennifer Hudson with her golden voice will probably not have the same kind of success that Britney Spears enjoyed before. It will not be impossible for Jennifer Hudson to reach those heights with her talent but the road will be much rougher and harder than for someone with Spear’s looks. Even people with little singing or acting talents have made it big in the music and movie scene because they… well… look good. It is a fact of life that is really hard to deal with but nevertheless accepted by all.

This obsession over good looks and model-thin bodies may have started in surreal settings such as the catwalk and the movie screen but it has now crossed over to real life stage where hundreds and thousands, maybe even millions, of young people are living. Look around and more and more people are having problems with their bodies and are developing eating disorders. This trend is actually alarming quite a number of health officials and adults. Having an eating disorder is not just something that can cause physical and health problems. It can also have a very large impact on the social and emotional life of these teenagers. Also, having little food in their stomach will also not contribute much to their mental well-being and performance in their jobs.

When this continue, experts feel that it can bring about a superficial society that is more focused on looks rather than on mental pursuits and successful job. It also minimizes the value put into hard work and mental capabilities. It allows people to falsely perceive that success in this world is as easy as looking beautiful all the time.

Combating eating disorders is something that all sectors of society are actively pursuing. It is however hard to do as it is not only the fault of the movie or the modeling industry but all people in society: the parents, the teachers and even the youngsters themselves. They must realize that eating disorder is something that can arise from different reasons: lack of self-esteem; peer pressure to be thin and in; lack of parental support; and school bullying. It is a multi-factoral problem and the earlier we admit to this, the faster we can fight against it.

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Surprising Facts on How Our Attitudes Might Trigger Eating Disoders

"You look so good. Did you lose weight?" This usual comment on one's physique perpetuate the importance of being thin. A study at Harvard University and Radcliffe found out that "body dissatisfaction and the desire to lose weight are the norm for 70 percent of young women." Our culture seems to describe thinness as beauty and most of the time such kind of thinking begins at home. This along with other attitudes on food and dieting trigger eating disorders.

Parents are the child's role model. If parents have unhealthy eating habits it is hard for them to teach responsible choices on food and dieting. Trisha Gura, Ph. D., in her book Lying in Weight narrated how her childhood experiences affected her concept on food and dieting:

"I remember one Christmas when I was 10 years old. My extended clan, half-Czech, half-Slovak, had grown so large over the years that this one holiday we spent more than six hours joyfully opening presents. My mother, wringing her hands on her apron, stole into the kitchen every fifteen minutes to baste her roast, long since done. Time passes. Too much time. At last, when my family finally sat down to dinner, my mother watched, horrified, as she imagined everyone passing judgement on the stringy beef brisket. In reality, the family was oblivious. I alone noticed my mother's face, pinched and growing whiter. In my typical preteen mode of trying to make everything right, I took the platter, forced a radiant smile, and raised the serving fork to take a giant piece. Offended my mother lost her composure. She jerked the platter from my hands, marched into the kitchen, and dumped the meat into the trash. The room went silent. This was the moment when I learned to equate food with perfection."

Parents approaches on food and dieting affects children. Children come to relate more to their parents in series of experiences with mealtime. Food is one of the medium for parent and child's communication. It is an integral part of the child's psychological development. In her book The Hungry Self, Kim Chernin says that "food is so charged, so significant, so informed with primal meaning that we might well expect the communications that take place through food to carry more weight than those that arise when a child totters about knocking into furniture or pushes a truck across the floor." "Food can be withheld or given too freely, or given for purposes other than nutrition, Trisha Gura, Ph. D. explains in her book Lying in Weight.

Neglectful and unmindful parent's approaches on food and dieting can lead to eating disorders of a person in later years. For example: a parent may sooth her child by giving her candy. As she grows up she learns to reward herself with that indulgence. On her teens, she may battle with addiction to sweets. If unguarded she may have a more difficult time regulating her addiction to sweets which will largely affect her weight and diet.

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