Is Emotional Eating an Eating Disorder?

September 10, 2009 By 1 Comment
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If you use food to manage your mood or if you eat in response to your feelings, you may be someone who is suffering from emotional eating disorder. Emotional eating usually occurs when you eat on impulse because of a triggered feeling.

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Although it is not defined as an eating disorder, some medical experts think that it is still akin to an eating disorder because the patient has an unbalanced outlook or relationship with food.

An emotional eater eats because of a triggered emotion and normally not because he or she feels hungry. If you are not sure if you are an emotional eater, you might want to ask yourself some guiding questions.

  • Do you normally eat even if you are not hungry?
  • Do you eat when you are feeling down, lonely, stressed out or if you just don’t have anything to do?
  • Do you usually grab food right away and chomp down?
  • If faced with a problem, do you usually find yourself eating instead of dealing with the problem on hand?
  • Do you find it difficult to draw the line between being truly hungry and just having some snacks?

If your answer to the said questions is mostly a yes, then you have experienced or may even still be experiencing emotional eating. Emotional eaters’ attention usually gets curbed because of food.

For emotional eaters, there are ways of managing this disorder. Emotional eaters can follow some steps in order to develop a healthier relationship with emotions and food.

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First off, a person should understand that while food is important to survive, to have too much passion for it is not healthy. Food should not be used as means to appease feelings of sadness or loneliness.

Secondly, a person should become a more wary eater. More thought or attention should be given whenever one is eating. A person should check his or her eating habits and learn new and other skills in order to better the current ones.

A person who thinks he or she may be an emotional eater can try keeping a food journal. Keeping one can help a person keep track of the food he or she eats, when and why.

Simply write down the food that you have eaten in a day, where you ate them and why you ate them. Was it because you were truly hungry or because of a whim? The food journal can help you keep track of your emotional eating patterns.

Once you keep a record of your eating patterns and of the reasons behind every eating session, you can fully assess the possible ways for you to deal with emotional eating.

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Bulimia Eating Disorder – 5 risk areas that you should know about

September 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment
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Bulimia eating disorder cases are increasing every day. There are many reasons why this is the case. You should be aware about this rising phenomena; whether for yourself or for your growing children, so that you can find preventative measures.

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Do know that a bulimia eating disorder, if left untreated, can cause death. Getting to know what are the risk areas can help greatly in preventing one from developing.

Poor self image – To begin with, a sufferer usually has a poor self-image and lacks self esteem. Depression is often experienced. The sufferer finds solace in food and overeats. Overwhelmed with guilt and shame from eating too much, he or she then undertakes compensatory actions.

Compensatory actions include induced vomiting or taking laxatives. However, these actions can have a harmful effect on the body.

Age – Most sufferers develop a bulimia eating disorder during adolescence. It is found that the age group, somewhere between 10 and 25, is at the greatest risk to developing bulimia. Peer pressure can have a major part to play.

Media Influences – A constant exposure to media advertisements and fashion magazines can greatly influence your habits, preferences and lifestyle choices. It is often the case that the media presents unachievable images.

You start having distorted body image perceptions and wanting to look like the models featured.

Stress -  Stress can can cause you to lose sight of yourself. Stress can come from traumatic childhood experiences that leave you feeling unworthy and unwanted. This may cause you to develop a bulimia eating disorder as you use food to help you forget your stress.

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Also, if you are an overachiever or perfectionist you may resort to bulimia when things do not go your your way.

Performance related activity – If you are engaged in an activity that relies heavily upon outward appearance, you are also more susceptible. These performance related activities include gymnastics, dancing and modeling.

The added pressures of these activities may make you feel that you want to look good for your sport or job.

You should know that eating disorders can result in death if you do not take early actions in prevention. In fact, you may actually be shocked to learn that one in seven college-aged females struggle with bulimia.

Becoming aware about your increased risks to developing a bulimia eating disorder is important in helping you take the necessary precautions.

You can also help prevent your children from developing a bulimia eating disorder by showering them with plenty of love and encouraging open communication.

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8 Signs of Bulimia and Physical Effects

September 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment
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Eating disorders such as bulimia will not only completely transform a person’s appearance but will also affect one’s behavior and personality.

bulimiaA simple explanation of bulimics is that they eat large amounts of food and then throw up (binge-eating and purging). The first step to prevention is to recognize the symptoms. Here is an overview of bulimia, as well as the most common symptoms of eating disorders.

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia is characterized by episodes of binge-eating followed by purging. A binge is an episode whereby an individual eats a much larger amount of food than would most people in a similar situation.

Binge-eating is usually a response to depression, stress, or self-esteem issues. During a binge episode, an individual experiences a loss of control.

Some methods of weight control for bulimics include vomiting, fasting, enemas, excessive use of laxatives and diuretics, and a compulsive need to exercise. People with bulimia can appear perfectly normal; many of them are of normal weight and some are even overweight.

Moreover, binge-eating and purging is often performed in secret, making it difficult to determine whether or not a person is suffering from bulimia.

Although there is currently no known definite cause of bulimia, there are warning signs to be considered.

Signs of bulimia

–        Uncontrollable eating

–        Inappropriate weight control methods – strict dieting, fasting, vomiting, vigorous exercise, or abuse of laxatives or diuretics

–        Frequent trips to the bathroom after meals

–        Preoccupation with body weight and/or body image

–        Consummation of foods mostly high in calories

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–        Depression or mood swings, feeling out of control

–        Heartburn, bloating, indigestion, constipation, weakness, exhaustion

–        In women, irregular menstrual periods

If you have a friend or family member who suffers from an eating disorder, your emotional support is important. Recommend that they see a doctor and/or a counselor who can help them in their battle against the illness.

As in the case of many other diseases, be prepared to meet denial, resistance, and anger from the sufferer. Learn to recognize the symptoms of eating disorders in order to prevent their escalation. It may save someone’s life.

Filed Under: Types of Eating Disorder Tagged With: , ,

10 Signs of Anorexia Nervosa and Physical Effects

September 5, 2009 By 2 Comments
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Eating disorders such as anorexia will not only completely transform a person’s appearance but will also affect one’s behavior and personality. A simple explanation of disorder is anorexics simply starve themselves. The first step to prevention is to recognize the symptoms. Here is an overview of anorexia as well as the most common symptoms of eating disorders.

Anorexia Nervosa

anorexia4Anorexia occurs when a person refuses to eat in order to maintain a particular body weight. Anorexics will experience extreme weight loss, as much as 15% below their normal body weight. Even when they become very skinny, they still believe that they are overweight. Weight loss is achieved through excessive exercise, laxatives and fasting. Their acquired dieting habits are based on their intense fear of becoming fat. Anorexia is thought to be most common among adolescent girls and people involved in activities wherein thinness is preferred, such as dancing, modeling, and distance running. It is helpful to know the symptoms of anorexia.

Signs of anorexia

–        Feeling overweight even when thin

–        Experiencing dramatic weight loss

–        Basing self-worth on body weight and/or body image

–        Skipping meals frequently

–        Insisting on eating only certain foods (usually those low in fat and calories)

–        Preparing meals for others but not eating

–        Weighing yourself frequently

–        Looking in the mirror for flaws frequently

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–        In females, missing three consecutive menstrual periods

–        In males, a decrease in sexual desire

Physical effects of anorexia

The most serious health risk to someone with anorexia is death caused either by the effects of severe weight loss or by suicide. Estimates claim that as many as 1 in 10 people with anorexia will die from complications of the disorder.

If you have a friend or family member who suffers from an eating disorder, your emotional support is important. Recommend that they see a doctor and/or a counselor who can help them in their battle against the illness. As in the case of many other diseases, be prepared to meet denial, resistance, and anger from the sufferer. Learn to recognize the symptoms of eating disorders in order to prevent their escalation. It may save someone’s life.

Filed Under: Types of Eating Disorder

Information On The Different Types Of Eating Disorders And Their Impact

September 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment
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There are many eating disorders. Many people assume an eating disorder is only classed as an eating disorder if it is extreme. This isn’t necessarily the case.

All eating disorders start somewhere, and usually they begin with very minor or very occasional aversions to either consuming food in the first place, or keeping food within the system.

Eating disorders aren’t always psychological and sometimes there are physical reasons why a person may not wish to eat or can’t keep food down which has absolutely nothing to do with aversions to food, so people mustn’t be too quick to make snap judgments. Underlying illnesses or internal defects often account for a large number of cases in which people simply assume a person has an eating disorder.

Many people, particularly women and an ever growing number of teenage girls, suffer from eating disorders. Majority of the time the reasons are psychological and have much to do with a persons’ self-image of themselves.

These days there is an immense pressure on women to look super slim and have model good looks, and this is simply an unrealistic expectation for the general populace to follow. Not every person has been blessed with such extraordinary genetics, and feel they are being judged by people for not matching up.

This can cause many women to consume ridiculously small amounts of food, and often the food they do consume they bring back up in the mistaken and dangerous belief they can somehow fulfil the mythical expectations that are being imposed upon them.

The most common eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia.

Typically, anorexia is an altogether loss of appetite which inevitably makes a person unable to eat as the condition worsens.

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Bulimia is a disorder in which people often binge eat great amounts of food then purposely bring the food back up to avoid gaining weight.

Eating disorders are extremely dangerous. The human body needs to consume food and needs the food to stay in the system to be broken down into vital nutrients. Eating disorders, whether food is consumed to begin with or brought back up, is paramount to starvation and the effects of malnutrition will soon begin to show.

Eating disorders can be particularly distressing for the person suffering as well as loved ones who often feel powerless to help. If you suffer from an eating disorder it is important you are true to yourself and admit this, and seek professional help as soon as possible so you can begin to recover and deal with not only your eating disorder, but the issues in which sparked it to begin with.

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