What are eating disorders?
Eating disorders are often described as an outward expression of internal emotional pain and confusion. Obsessive thoughts about, and the behaviour associated with, food are maladaptive means of dealing with emotional distress which cannot be expressed in any other satisfactory way. The emotional distress is often to do with a negative perception of self, a feeling of being unable to change "bad" things about oneself: food is used as an inappropriate way of taking control.Perhaps due to cultural ideas of what constitutes perfection, people often feel a strong desire to be thinner than their bodies naturally tend to be - "when I am thin everything will be alright". They confuse who they are with what they look like. As a result they change their eating patterns and may as a consequence be at risk of developing an eating disorder. An eating disorder involves a distorted pattern of thinking about food and size/weight: there is a preoccupation and obsession with food, as well as an issue of control or lack of control around food and its consumption. There are several recognised eating disorders which can be described as follows:
Anorexia
Anorexic people starve themselves with the aim of losing weight to a point which others would consider to be very thin (although the sufferer is unlikely to perceive themselves as such). The longer the condition continues, the more difficult it can be to tackle, and in severe cases can necessitate hospitalisation and can even prove fatal. Sufferers are typically in their teens or twenties and most are women, although around 10% are male. The following are symptoms:- distorted perceptions of one's weight, size and read more
