Eating disorders include intense emotions and abnormal behaviours around food and weight. They are associated with serious emotional and physical problems that can have life-threatening consequences.
A recent study, 27% of all law students screened positive for an eating disorder (34% of females and 18% males).
Eating disorders are about the way you feel about food, your weight, body and self-image. With support, eating disorders are treatable. The three most common types of eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.
Anorexia is associated with persistent behaviours that interfere with maintaining an adequate weight for health. Typically, these behaviours involve restricting diet, purging and over-exercising. A person has a powerful fear about becoming fat and constantly overestimates body size and shape.
Bulimia is associated with purging food after a period of binge eating through laxatives, diuretics, and enemas. The person feels out of control over how much and what is eaten. The person feels negative about their weight and shape and feels this matters more about them than anything else.
Binge-Eating is characterized by recurring episodes of binge eating. The person feels out of control when they are eating and will feel self-disgust, guilt and shame. The binging is not followed by excessive exercise, vomiting or misuse of laxatives etc. It is seen as a disorder if it occurs once a week for a period of three months or more.
Orthorexia is another disorder not officially an eating disorder but frequently co-occurs with eating disorders. It is more often diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive disorder. An orthorexic may avoid certain food additives, fat, sugar, salt, food colouring and other ingredients that they deem unhealthy. Restricting your diet can lead to malnutrition and with that comes a variety of health problems including heart, kidney and cardiac failure.
All eating disorders can lead to severe health problems including death due to severe dehydration or suicide. They can also lead to dental problems, gastrointestinal and esophageal issues and impaired immune system functioning.
People with anorexia have an intense and irrational fear of gaining weight and having body fat. They may believe they're fat, even when well below the normal weight for their height and age. Anorexia is the most fatal eating disorder: some people may die of complications related to starvation, while others die of suicide.
People with bulimia go through cycles of bingeing and purging. Bingeing involves eating large amounts of food quickly. This makes people feel physically ill and anxious about gaining weight. Then they purge, which can involve vomiting, depriving themselves of food, over-exercising or using laxatives and diuretics.
People with binge eating disorder overeat compulsively, consuming huge amounts of food, often all at once. Like the other disorders, people with BED often feel out of control and powerless to stop the behaviour.
Orthorexia nervosa describes a pathological obsession with proper nutrition that is characterized by a restrictive diet, ritualized patterns of eating, and rigid avoidance of foods believed to be unhealthy or impure. Although prompted by a desire to achieve optimum health, orthorexia may lead to nutritional deficiencies, medical complications, and poor quality of life.
Like anorexia, orthorexia involves restriction of the amount and variety of foods eaten, making malnutrition likely. Therefore, the two disorders share many of the same physical consequences.
https://cmha.ca/mental-health/understanding-mental-illness/eating-disorders
https://www.eatingdisorder.org/eating-disorder-information/
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