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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Recovering From Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are not only sickness among adults, alarmingly 15 percent of young women shows eating disorders. When put into numbers, that would be 1 out of 100 American women have eating disorders. Males are also not left out, about 5 to 10 percent of anorexics and bulimics are males.

The sad thing is that these figures are the reported ones, a large number of eating disorders cases remain unreported. Therefore, the numbers are deemed to increase. This is because of media hype about standards of beauty. Sadly, the idea of is that “thin is beautiful.” Because of this influence in pop culture, women would have to conform to be accepted in social circles. As young as 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders are already thinking or being afraid of getting fat.

For an individual to recover from eating disorders, it would be an emotional and long process. Suffering from eating disorders can be because of physical, mental or psychological problems. As part of the recovery plan, it is important for the individual to consult a psychiatrist or a therapist. There are different types of eating disorders, whether it is anorexia, bulimia or binge eating, it is very important to get professional help.

Getting psychological assistance would help the individual to identify the reasons why he or she view their body in a negative way. Another reason can be biological factors. There are eating disorders that are genetic just like Prader-Willi Syndrome.

Not like dieting or treatment of any kind of disease, there are no specific period how long would be the recovery period. It depends on every individuals attitude, case and speed of improvement. Experts would recommend different things that could ensure and speed up recovery.

• Be comfortable and love yourself. Individuals who are suffering from eating disorders would have low self-esteem and confidence. They are also not content with their body shape and show that in their attitude. Starting to love yourself would encourage you to rest and exercise more and eat healthier foods.

• Start the healing process by clearing your closets or removing this around the house which can dampen your spirits and emotions. You could make friends or relationships with people that lead a healthy lifestyle so your would be able to adopt their habits.

• Another part of the healing process is forgiving. Eating disorders could be because of a traumatic experience which left a huge impact on how the individual view and value herself. It is important to forgive other people and yourself.

• Find a creative outlet or you can start getting involved in some physical activities like camping or walking to clear your mind and at the same boost or increase your energy. Some eating disorder sufferers also lack energy because of little physical activity.

• Get the support you need. A recovering eating disorder patient would need to surround herself with positive people. Aside from that it is important that they get the support from friends, family, relatives and loved ones. If they cannot give you the understanding and support you need, there are support groups which would be very happy to help and accommodate you. There can be members who have undergone the same problem but were able to overcome it, you could learn so much from their experiences and how they dealt with their issues.

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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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Treatment For Eating Disorder

Not everyone is excited to undergo treatment for their eating disorder. Most people who suffer from this condition shy away from any medical help due to the fear of rebuke and embarrassment from society. Keep in mind, however, that leaving this condition alone may only compromise your health -- emotional and behavioral scarring is common, as well as physical health problems that may cause death if left unchecked.

This is one reason why people should be very observant with the signs and symptoms of eating disorders if they want to get rid of it as soon as possible. Keep in mind that time is not your luxury at this point, and leaving the condition be will only lead to serious complications later on.

The 3-Step Way

There is a treatment for eating disorder called as the 3-step way. This integrates three basic steps where an individual can get over their eating disorders without having to go through years and years of excessive treatment just to get rid of the problem.

1. The first step is to find a health care provider that specializes in eating disorders. This will help you identify whether you are suffering from bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, or binge eating disorder (BED) to determine the most effective treatment method for it.
2. The second step involves admittance over the fact that you are suffering from eating disorder. Many fail at this point since their ego or personality would not accept the fact that they are having eating problems for a variety of personal reasons -- mostly out of embarrassment. Once you have accepted that you are suffering from eating disorder -- then the next step is readily available for you.
3. There are different treatment methods available to you now that have safely determine what your eating disorder is and have overcome the mental and emotional barriers that stops you from getting rid of it from your system. All you need now is to take a specific program and see it to the end.

Work It Out With A Group

Undergoing treatment method for your eating disorder alone may not be a good way to see it through to the end. It is possible that the lack of support, as well as the evidence that you are not alone in this condition, might cause your determination to waver.

Medical experts advise their patients suffering from eating disorder to enrollment in a group or class to share the experience and gain acceptance from society that they think to have shunned them due to the condition. This allows you to share your experiences, while listening to the experience of others regarding their eating disorders; come up with a treatment or diversion with the whole group, and develop camaraderie to build lasting relationships with people who understands what you're going through.

Share The Problem With Your Loved Ones

It is advisable for a person suffering from eating disorder to share the problem with their family and friends. It wouldn’t do you any good to shoulder the condition on your own when you have supportive people around you who are more than happy to help you out of the problem.

To put it simply; once you have people you love understand your condition, there are people who will push you with treatment, as well as coming up with ways and restrictions to get rid of this problem out of your system.

Education Is Key

Information can be a cure for your eating disorder, especially when it is provided by an expert in the subject. The best way to program your mind to get rid of the problem is first know about it to help you identify and accept the condition to remove any mental and emotional barriers that is stopping you from taking any help from experts.

Look for a eating disorder medical expert and ask them to tell you everything you need to know about the condition. You will mostly like be provided with a nutrition or diet plan to keep your body in shape, as well as a strict program to help you counteract the causes that result to this problem.

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What Is Binge Eating Disorder?

Carolyn Costin says that "the term binge eating disorder (BED) was officially introduced in 1992 at an International Eating Disorders Conference. The term is used to describe people who binge eat but do not fast or purge to lose weight. A person who binges is one who is referred as compulsive eater, emotional overeater or food addict. Binge eaters suffer from debilitating patterns of eating to self-sooth. This, when done on a regular basis produces weight gain and obesity. Binge eating was first studied by Dr. Albert Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1950's. Additional studies were made in the 1980's. Then in 1992, the term was adopted at the International Eating Disorders Conference.

Some professionals subcategorizes binge eating into two: one is deprivation-sensitive binge eating which appears to be result of weight loss or periods of restrictive eating and the other is addictive or dissociative binge eating which is the practice of self-meditating or self-soothing with food unrelated to prior restricting. Binge eaters feel numbness, dissociation, calmness, and regaining of inner equilibrium.

The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM-IV listed the following criteria for binge eating disorder:

1. Recurrent episodes of binge eating like eating in a discrete period of time - amount of food is larger than most people would eat in a similar period of time in similar situation.
2. Lack of control over eating. A person feels he or she cannot stop eating or control what or how much he or she is eating.
3. Manifests three or more of the following: eating much more rapidly than normal, eating until feeling uncomfortably full, eating large amounts of food though not feeling physically hungry, eating alone to avoid embarrassment/deny how much he or she is eating, feeling disgusted with oneself, and depressed or very guilty after overeating.
4. The binge eating happens at least two days a week for six months.

There is a common misconception that all people with binge eating disorder are also overweight. Being overweight or obese is not enough to qualify a person to have binge eating disorder. There are various causes for obesity. The Oxford English Dictionary helps explain the difference between simple overeating from binge eating: the term binge refers to "a heavy drinking bout, hence a spree." The Webster's Collegiate Dictionary also says that the word binge applies to anything where there is "an unrestrained or excessive indulgence." Thus, binge eating disorder is when a person binged food in a discrete period of time with the person having the trouble to stop or control the behavior.

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What Is Binge Eating?

Binge eating is now being defined as an eating disorder of its own category due to unique signs and symptoms that an individual shows when under this condition. People who are suffering from eating disorders may be categorized to be under anorexia or bulimia nervosa; it is possible that their actions may indeed be from a binge eating disorder.

Facts On Binge Eating

Binge eating is classified as an eating disorder where an individual eats large amounts of food in a single sitting, unlike overeating. An average person who suffers this disorder may be observed to "binge" at least twice every week within the first three months; though may continue on if left unchecked.

People who are suffering from this eating disorder may eat alone to avoid being discovered of their abnormal habits. There were also testimonies from people who were under this condition that they have uncontrolled urges to eat even when they are not hungry.

Difference With Other Eating Disorders

There is a slight difference between binge eating disorder (BED) and bulimia nervosa. People who are suffering from the latter are seen to be prone to compulsive physical exercise, while people who are under the former may not do anything strenuous at all. Also, overeating is not a characteristic of binge eating disorder in contrast to people who suffer from bulimia nervosa. It was said that people with BED may even have bouts of aversion towards food.

Causes

There is no known cause of why some people suffering from binge eating disorder. Though many classify this problem to be part of the signs commonly seen in bulimia nervosa; medical experts agree that this is separate condition from the type main types of eating disorders.

Common triggers may be sudden and extreme bouts of emotional surge -- such as sadness, depression, anger, anxiety, irritation, or even boredom. Ego might also become a trigger for binge eating disorder and is commonly observed to people who pay too much attention on their physical outlook -- usually thinking that the other have a better looking body may trigger the condition.

Health Risks

People who suffer from binge eating disorder may result to weakness and fatigue since the body lacks the proper nutrients to get it going in top form. Diabetes and cardiovascular problems were also reported considering that binge eaters usually take in large amounts of sugar or fat -- such as sweets, meats, fast food, junk food, and the likes.

High blood pressure and stroke is also a direct result of binge eating disorder, while more severe cases are prone to cancer cells forming in their system.

Avoid Immediate Diet

It is advisable for a person who is suffering from BED to stop thinking of going into a strict diet program to counteract their rapid weight gain. Medical experts who made a study of this condition reported that there are individuals who proceed immediately with a diet program after bouts of BED may only make matter even worst. It is advisable to undergo treatment to get rid of this condition before taking the next step to remove the physical and emotional effects on their bodies.

Treatment Methods

It is best if an individual who suffer from BED to seek the help of their health care provider. Taking a personal hand in treating the condition, such as dieting, may only make it worst.

The first step to a successful treatment is to first determine the cause of the condition. The trigger needs to be found in order to take the necessary steps to counter it -- though many are unsuccessful in mental treatment since they are quite ashamed of the condition and may even make up lies to cover the truth.

A treatment method called Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is advised to people suffering from BED. This allows an individual to keep track of their daily eating habits and slowly change their abnormal eating habits starting from their mind -- cultivating the necessary determination and discipline to counteract any urges when the condition kicks in.

There are also specialized weight loss programs that targets people who are suffering from BED. This includes mental, emotional, and behavioral exercise coupled by slow and systematic physical exercise regime to help an individual lose weight while keeping tabs on their condition.

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