All You Need to Know About Eating Disorders

Ground Report | New Delhi: All You Need to Know About Eating Disorders; There is a commonly held misconception that eating disorders are a lifestyle choice. It actually serious and often fatal illnesses that cause severe disturbances to a person’s eating behaviors. Obsessions with food, body weight, and shape may also signal an eating disorder. Common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder.

All you need to know about eating disorders:

What Is an Eating Disorder?

It's happening because of severe disturbances in eating behavior. These can include reducing food intake or extreme overeating. These patterns can be caused by distress or concern about body shape or weight, and they harm normal body composition and function. A person with this disease may have started out just eating smaller or larger amounts of food than usual.

At some point, the urge to eat less or more spirals out of control. It often develops during early adulthood. Some reports indicate onset can also occur during childhood or later in adulthood. Many adolescents can hide these behaviors from their families for months or years.

An estimated .5-3.7% of females struggle with anorexia in their lifetime, while an estimated 1.1-4.2% of females have bulimia in their lifetime. Community surveys have estimated that between 2% and 5% of Americans experience binge eating disorder in a six-month period.

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It's not due to a failure of will or behavior. They are real, treatable medical illnesses in which certain abnormal patterns of eating take on a life of their own.

Types:

Health professionals recognize three different types of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNOS), such as binge eating disorders. All eating disorders have different warning signs that often depend on the person. Learn more about these common types of eating disorders in this post.

What are the causes?

Like other mental disorders, there is no single causes. A range of biological, psychological and social factors may contribute. Most eating disorders occur when a person has distorted thoughts and emotions relating to body image.

What are the risks and side effects?

A person with an eating disorder can experience a wide range of physical and psychological health problems. Many people with eating disorders also have other mental disorders, particularly anxiety, mood, or substance use disorders. Serious physical health consequences can include severe malnutrition, brain dysfunction, and heart or kidney failure. Unfortunately, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

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Treatments and Therapies:

Adequate nutrition, reducing excessive exercise, and stopping purging behaviors are the foundations of treatment. Treatment plans are tailored to individual needs and may include one or more of the following:

• Individual, group, and/or family psychotherapy
• Medical care and monitoring
• Nutritional counseling
• Medications

Where can you go for help?

The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping individuals and families affected by disorders. You can call their confidential hotline at 800-931-2237 or chat with a trained volunteer online for information and support.

What can you do to help others?

First Get trained in national institute of mental health then You will learn the risk factors and warning signs for disease and other mental disorders and addictions, strategies for how to help someone in crisis and non-crisis situations and where to turn for help.

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