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Eating disorders are mental disorders that cause persistent abnormal eating habits that have a great adverse impact on the physical and mental health of a person. Eating disorders make people focus on their body shape, weight, and their food, developing extremely unhealthy and downright dangerous eating behaviors. The most well known among eating disorders are Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge Eating disorder.
Anorexia Nervosa is the condition where a person suffers from a fear of gaining weight and severely restricts food intake, causing a very low body weight. The patient considers themselves to be overweight even when they would be extremely underweight and continue to limit food intake trying to become thinner. Bulimia Nervosa is another disorder where the patient goes through cycles of sudden overeating followed by attempts to compensate including forced vomiting, excessive exercise, intake of laxatives, etc. Overeating and purging cycles cause embarrassment, feelings of guilt and shame, and is repeated secretly to avoid the shame. Anorexic people may also indulge in the purging behavior, but differs from bulimia in the fact that anorexic patients are always severely underweight, while bulimic patients fall in the normal to overweight category. Patients suffering from the binge eating disorder go through cycles of overeating regularly, but do not indulge in purging behavior.
Treatment for eating disorders mostly focus on psychotherapy to bring patients out of the mindset causing the disorder. This is often combined with medical care and nutritional therapy.
Treatments for eating disorders often require a combination of treatments. Medications may be prescribed to deal with any underlying physical disease that causes the eating disorder. Sometimes a mental disease like anxiety or depression is the cause of an eating disorder, and these may be treated with medications to treat the eating disorder. Treatments are also combined with nutritional guidelines tailored to individual patients to help them cope with the nutritional imbalance caused due to the disorder and to restore them to their normal BMI.
The most important mode of treatment for eating disorder is psychotherapy. Since eating disorder is a mental disorder, psychotherapy shows the best results in treating it as it can address all the underlying causes for the disorder to have developed and help the patient deal with them better. Psychotherapeutic options may include behavior therapy targeted at the diseased individual, group therapy among a group of people affected by similar condition, or family therapy where the friends, family, and loved ones of the patient are involved. Psychotherapeutic treatment may be applied in combination with one or more of medications and nutritional therapy. Depending on the severity of the disorder and its outcomes, hospitalization may also be advised.
Eating disorders manifest as persisting abnormal eating habits. Anybody who is very seriously underweight and yet regularly insists on eating far lesser than necessary is eligible for treatment. People who are very anxious about their weight and body shape often develop eating disorders and need to be treated. People who regularly get urgent craving for food at random times during the day and eat massive amounts compulsively need to be treated for eating disorders. Also people who regularly eat inedible items like dirt, talcum powder, toothpastes, etc. need to be treated for eating disorders.
Everybody can feel sudden cravings for food or may be unsatisfied with their body image. But in a number of cases these concerns do not persist and do not affect eating behavior. In these cases the people affected do not need to be treated.
Treatments for eating disorders need to be followed up with a nutritional chart designed and tailored to recover normal BMI for patients. A psychoanalytic checkup may be advised after some time after the treatment concludes to rule out any chances of relapse.
Like other psychoanalytic treatments, treatments for eating disorders are long term treatments. The recovery period is as long as the duration of the treatment, which is stopped after the problem is resolved.
Cost of treatments for eating disorders can range between Rs. 500 and Rs. 10,000. There is no real upper limit pertaining to the treatment as psychotherapy can extend for as long as needed.
The treatment results are usually permanent as long as the triggers causing the disorder do not reappear, or other triggers do not come into play.
Rs. 500 - Rs. 10,000
Eating disorders can harm your physical and mental health. Anorexia, bulimia and binge eating are some of the most common eating disorders. They are typically caused by dissatisfaction with physical appearances. Feeling bad about how you look can often lead to depression. In many cases, this can also lead to suicidal thoughts. Here are a few reasons for this.
Like any other disease or disorder, it is essential for people with eating disorders to get professional help overcoming their habits. Parents, friends and other members of the family should be supportive and be on the lookout for signs of suicidal thoughts. This includes talking about death, researching means of suicide, not being able to sleep or sleeping too much, isolating oneself from people around, losing interest in activities and hobbies etc. If the person does seem to be having suicidal thoughts, they should not be ignored but brought to the notice of a counsellor immediately.
While eating is one of the most important methods to survive, as it the fuel for the body, there are people who have issues related to eating. While some tend to avoid food, others tend to overeat and some tend to binge on certain types of foods. The two extremes of avoiding food and overeating, known as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa respectively are the most common types of eating disorders. In both cases, it is not just about food.
In each of the individual with eating disorder, there is always an underlying psychological problem, depression, anxiety, or substance abuse. As the eating disorder is just one of the manifestations, the underlying problem needs to be addressed for the eating disorder to completely disappear. Else, there are chances that it may resurface again in a while. Treating an eating disorder requires various approaches in addition to just managing the eating pattern. Read on to know the most common five methods.
In more severe cases, the person may be required to undergo a residential program to overcome the abnormal eating tendencies.
In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!
An individual adopts his personality on the basis of both the genes inherited by him/her as well as the individual’s life experiences. Psychologists have been trying for decades to decipher several aspects of temperament and personality along with particular personality traits in persons with eating disorders. Individuals appear relatively specific to each type of eating disorder, and they can be distinguished from healthy individuals.
Eating disorders are known to be caused by a combination of various factors such as genetic, temperamental as well as external influences. But the most common link between people with eating disorders comprises of difficulties in expressing and coping with emotions.
The connection between emotional avoidance and eating disorders
Emotional avoidance can be described as actions which are intended to inhibit any emotional response from taking a place such as anger, sadness, fear or anxiety. Individuals affected with eating disorders tend to seek refuge in continuous eating or stop eating as an unconscious effort to cope up with the situation and feel better.
For example, a person suffering from anorexia tends to restrict their food intake when they come across feelings of loneliness and sadness. This is because it gives them a false sense of control in the situation. On the other hand, when it comes to a person with bulimia, purging and bingeing offers them a momentary feeling of comfort and relief. People who tend to binge on food tend to run away from the reality and use food as a means to distract themselves from the concerns and worries of the real world.
The reality is that eating disorders tend to provide short-term relief or satisfaction from emotional distress while in the long run throwing them into the abyss of emotional misery, depression, and loneliness.
Treating Eating Disorder
Patients suffering from anorexia nervosa have excessive levels of emotional avoidance which can be compared to other psychiatric populations. This finding emphasizes the fact that emotional avoidance is present in abundance in patients with anorexia nervosa and it also testifies to the fact that to some extent such patients willingly avoid aversive emotional states. They are also not competent in correctly identifying emotions and are not able to respond to feeling stemming from emotional distress.
Treating eating disorders incorporates different types of strategies which can aid the sufferers to improve their quality of lives. But it is essential on the part of the doctors to help the patients identify, process and cope with the emotional turmoil in productive ways.
In many cultures, people are taught to suppress their emotions, but it has a long-term impact on the mind of the person. It is, therefore, necessary to share all kinds of emotional upheaval with some confidante. Such behaviours can help them to cope up with emotionally difficult and traumatic times.
In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!
If you are diabetic and are in a practice of manipulating insulin levels to bring about weight loss, you must understand that it may have catastrophic consequences on your health.
Even though it is not yet officially regarded as a medical condition, diabulimia is a serious eating disorder that can bring about diabetes complications. According to experts, as many as one-third of the young female diabetics could be suffering from various diseases due to this condition. Even though it is more common in females, it is also seen to be occurring in significant numbers of young men as well.
Why is diabulimia one of the most dangerous eating disorders?
Diabulimia is a condition where the person deliberately injects less than the required amount of insulin to lose body weight. Contrary to type 2 diabetes, type 1 diabetes has no connection with lifestyle or diet. The ones who are affected need to get insulin since they are not able to produce enough insulin for their daily requirements. It is crucial to mention the function of insulin at this juncture. Without this hormone, the digestive system would not be able to break down the sugars from the foods and obtain energy from it. Without insulin, the sugars derived from food will be forced to feed the existing fat, organs, and even muscles.
When you are purposefully depriving the body of insulin, you are heading for permanent kidney failure, liver failure, fertility issues, heart diseases and even premature death. But it may not be visible from outside- you will have normalcy in your appearance. Since you are restricting insulin inside the body, you will have a very high blood sugar level. This invariably runs the risk of various complications such as damaging the eyes, kidneys and the nerve endings. The worst thing is that the warning signs may go unnoticed until it is too late. Therefore, it is always suggested to seek advice from endocrinologist as and when you notice any of the signs and symptoms mentioned above.
Know the warning signs
Even though the term is often deemed inaccurate, diabulimia holds the premonition of a serious pattern of disordered eating. Some of the most common warning signs of this disorder include:
Manipulating insulin can be fatal for people who have type 1 diabetes. In case you see that you are affected by any of these signs and symptoms, you should seek medical attention without further delay.
In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!
If your child develops an eating disorder, you might be unsure about how to solve the problem and how to act on it. Eating disorders occur when your child tends to either eat in excess, or eats too less. The behavior of your child is also subjected to change because of an eating disorder. It is likely for him to get withdrawn, rude, and touchy. This makes it difficult for you to deal with them at a time when communication is necessary. Here are some essential tips that you should follow in dealing with eating disorders in children: