7 Facts About Eating Disorders
Eating disorders can affect anyone. It is not just young girls or women who are affected with it as so erroneously thought. It is an unreasonable mental obsession with the food intake and body image that can turn deadly and even life threatening when not diagnosed. Here are some must know facts about eating disorders all of us should know. We might be suffering from it or missing signs of eating disorders in our loved ones.
1. “Always fat”
Even when they have their bones showing through their clothes and have ribs protruding, they think that they are fat and constantly try to starve themselves or take out the food that they put inside their stomachs. They have a very unhealthy body image and think of food as their main foe.
2. Anorexia, bulimia and binge eating
Anorexia and bulimia aren’t the same. While anorexics try to take out anything that goes inside and try not to eat at all, bulimics eat to their full and then purge it out. Binge eating on the other hand is when people have an uncontrollable desire to keep eating even when they can’t take it anymore.
3. It can be genetic
Some eating disorders are genetic or can be caused by stress, lifestyle and coping mechanism to some traumatic incidents in life. There is no one single cause to many eating disorders. Treatment works well when the underlying causes are found out.
4. High mortality rate
Of all mental illnesses, eating disorders have some of the highest mortality rates. Research has indicated that many people starve themselves to death or die of complications that arises out of malnutrition.
