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Basic Facts About Eating Disorders

Reprinted from Eating Disorders Review
November/December 1999 Volume 10, Number 6
©1999 Gürze Books

Eating disorders are extreme expressions of a range of weight and food issues experienced by both men and women. They include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and compulsive overeating. All are serious emotional problems that can have life-threatening consequences.

The defining features of Anorexia Nervosa are an intense and irrational fear of body fat and weight gain, an iron determination to become thinner and thinner, and a misperception of body weight and shape to the extent that the person may feel or see "fat" even when emaciation is clear to others. These psychological characteristics contribute to drastic weight loss and defiant refusal to maintain a healthy weight for height and age.

Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by self-perpetuating and self-defeating cycles of binge-eating and purging. During a "binge," the person consumes a large amount of food in a rapid, automatic, and helpless fashion. This may anesthetize hunger, anger, and other feelings, but it eventually creates physical discomfort and anxiety about weight gain. Thus, the person "purges"the food eaten, usually by inducing vomiting and by resorting to a combination of restrictive dieting, excessive exercising, laxatives, and diuretics.

Binge-Eating Disorder or Compulsive Eating is characterized primarily by periods of impulsive gorging or continuous eating. While there is no purging, there may be sporadic fasts or repetitive diets. Body weight may vary from normal to mild, moderate, or severe obesity.

A significant number of people suffer with "other" eating disorders which do not quite fit the criteria for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Clearly there are some who abuse vomiting and/or exercise without bingeing as forms of weight management, while there are others who indulge in repetitive episodes of bingeing without purging.

Eating disorders arise from a combination of long-standing psychological, interpersonal, and social conditions. Feelings of inadequacy, depression, anxiety, and loneliness, as well as troubled family and personal relationships, may contribute the development of an eating disorder. Our culture, with its unrelenting idealization of thinness and the "perfect body," is often a contributing factor. Once started, eating disorders may become self-perpetuating. Dieting, bingeing, and purging help some people to cope with painful emotions and to feel as if they are in control of their lives. Yet, at the same time, these behaviors undermine physical health, self-esteem, and a sense of competence and control.

Warning Signs

	A marked increase or decrease in weight not related to a medical condition.
	The development of abnormal eating habits such as severe dieting, preference for strange foods, withdrawn or ritualized behavior at mealtime, or secretive bingeing.
	An intense preoccupation with weight and body image.
	Compulsive or excessive exercising.
	Self-induced vomiting, periods of fasting, or laxative, diet pill, or diuretic abuse.
	Feelings of isolation, depression, or irritability.