Eating Disorders: The Causes and Types

Do you constantly worry about your weight, appearance or spend a significant amount of time thinking about food? Does every pound you lose or gain affect the way you feel about yourself and about the world? Do you use food for comfort? Do you use laxatives, diuretics or exercise excessively to prevent weight gain after you eat? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions you may have an eating disorder.

People with eating disorders often use food and the control of food in an attempt to compensate for feelings and emotions that may otherwise seem over-whelming. For some, dieting, bingeing, and purging may begin as a way to cope with painful emotions and to feel in control of one’s life, but ultimately, these behaviors will damage a person’s physical and emotional health, self-esteem, and sense of competence and control.

Most eating disorders develop during adolescents or as a young adult, but anyone, of any age or sex, can develop an eating disorder. Also more women than men are diagnosed with this illness. Eating disorders are serious and can be potentially life-threatening.

Causes of Eating Disorders
On the surface it may seem that the causes are just a preoccupation with food and weight gain, but these are more likely to be symptoms of the eating disorder rather than the causes. The causes come from a deeper source.

These possible contributing factors are:
Psychological Factors include stress, anxiety, trauma, anger, loneliness, depression, low self esteem, feelings of inadequacy or lack of control in life.
Social Factors include media, cultural pressures to look and be a certain size-the perfect size.
Interpersonal Factors: family and personal relationships issues (abuse divorce, family death, alcoholic parent, abusive boyfriend), difficulty coping with life or expressing emotions, physical or sexual abuse.
Other Factors include genetics, biochemical or biological factors may also play a role. Chemicals in the brain that control hunger, appetite, and digestion have been found to be imbalanced. The exact meaning and implications of these imbalances remains under investigation.

3 Most Common Eating Disorders
Anorexia Nervosa: is an eating disorder in which people starve themselves and lose an excessive amount of weight. Symptoms include: diminished body weight, intense fear of gaining weight, feeling fat even when thin, irregularity or loss of the menstrual cycle (in women), reduced libido (in men).
Bulimia Nervosa: is an eating disorder in which a person binges and then purges (self-induced vomiting, taking laxatives, or excessive exercising) as a method to undo a binge and prevent weight gain.
Binge Eating Disorder: is an eating disorder in which a person, who feels their eating is out of their control, eats an unusual large amount of food (binge) even when not hungry or until they are uncomfortably full.

Treatment
Treatment will vary from person to person, their diagnosis and the severity of their diagnosis. Treatment can involve anything from psychological counseling, nutritional counseling, outpatient therapy (family, individual or support groups), and impatient care (hospitalization-when illness becomes life threatening).