What is Anorexia?
Anorexia, also called Anorexia Nervosa, is a compulsion to starve. People with Anorexia are obsessed with being thin. Although they are constantly hungry and obsessed with food, they won’t give in to their strong desire to eat, out of fear of becoming fat. They have a distorted body image and believe they’re disgustingly fat. They may even think they’re fat when they’re dangerously underweight.
They are terrified of putting on weight and apart from starving themselves, they often exercise compulsively for long hours, and display strange rituals when preparing or ingesting food. They won’t eat certain foods, or they combine foods in peculiar ways (carrots with mustard, for instance).
People with anorexia typically look like skeletons and are withdrawn, irritable and depressed.
Up to 40 % of anorexics may develop bulimia.
What is Bulimia?
Bulimia involves bingeing and induced vomiting. Anorexia and bulimia often go hand in hand, but bulimics are often more difficult to recognise. Unlike anorexics, they’re not emaciated and usually maintain a normal weight (they may be slightly over- or underweight).
During a binge, bulimics may consume extraordinary amounts of food. They gorge themselves, which means they engulf huge quantities of anything available, within a short period of time. Then they are overcome with an urge to rid themselves of what they have eaten. So they purge themselves, putting their fingers down their throats to vomit forcefully, sometimes using implements like a spoon or a fork. Instead of vomiting, they may ingest massive doses of laxatives, which is a risky practice, as it can deplete the body of electrolytes and lead to heart failure. It can also cause irreversible bowel damage. The binge/purge cycle is greatly distressing. It causes anxiety and mood swings, as well as guilt, shame and self-loathing. Like anorexics, bulimics will often go to any length to hide their condition from their relatives and friends.
The physical and mental effects of anorexia and bulimia can be extremely serious and even deadly if not treated.
What is Binge Eating Disorder?
Binge Eating Disorder is similar to Bulimia, but with a complete absence of purging. As a result, binge eaters are often very overweight. They feel out of control around food and go through cycles of bingeing and dieting. About a third of all obese individuals are believed to be binge eaters.
Even though up to 30 % of obese people are binge eaters, there are different degrees of food addiction. Not everyone who is overweight binges. A binge is usually followed by a restrictive crash diet, which acts as a punishment. It is a vicious circle, because we’re always either “in control” or “out of control”, and one behaviour sets off the other. Not only is it a difficult cycle to break, but we don’t want to admit that we need help. We don’t want anyone to find out about our shameful “secret”. The guilt that follows a binge is almost unbearable, and very difficult to share with anyone.
Claiming that everyone who overeats is a food addict is the equivalent of saying that everyone who drinks too much is an alcoholic, which is certainly not true. An addiction is a psychological disturbance, a compulsion to do something, in an attempt to repress painful feelings. We feel hollow inside, and turn to our addiction to fill the gap. With food, this makes even more sense, as we fill ourselves up, to forget about the emptiness inside of us. But this doesn’t satisfy our psychological hunger, so we keep on eating, hoping that it will do so eventually.
Addictions are self-destructive. While we satisfy our immediate cravings, we go against who we really are, and what we really want. The consequences of this behaviour are harmful, and damaging to our health. Addictions are often due to extremely low self-esteem. We don’t feel good about ourselves. We don’t acknowledge our feelings and will do anything to avoid them. This pattern often goes back to a past of child abuse. To survive in a dysfunctional family, we learn to repress our emotions. But the anger and sadness don’t go away, so we need to stuff them down over and over again.
Being over- or underweight is not always due to an eating disorder. You are the only one who can determine if you have a serious problem with food. Eating disorders often require long-term psychotherapy in combination with other treatments.
By: Isabell Kratz About the Author:
