Eating Disorders: Reading The Warning Signs

Eating disorders imply an unhealthy obsession with food and weight, to the extent that it affects the concerned individual’s health. Eating disorders are a lot more serious than most of us recognize them to be and they can even lead to complications resulting in death. Concern with our weight and diet or health and appearance is normal, but victims of eating disorders tend to either over indulge or practically starve themselves, and this behavior is accompanied with feelings of guilt, depression, or anxiety and distress about weight or appearances. Women are more susceptible to eating disorders.

Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa are the two most well known and main categories of eating disorders, but there are others and many variations such as ‘selective eating disorder’, ‘compulsive eating disorder’ or ‘binge eating disorder’.

Eating disorders have no single or specific cause, and may stem from a variety of factors, some of which may not even be very obvious. Excessive concern with weight and physical appearance do play a role, but the reason why these concerns are above the normal has deeper roots. Eating disorders may caused by factors as varied as personality disorders, family or cultural pressures, emotional problems, and to some extent even biological or genetic factors. Psychological factors that affect the individual are therefore a significant risk.

In most cases unfortunately it’s hard to avoid the circumstances that give rise to or cultivate such eating disorders. In most cases it is also too late. There is little that we can do to control the influence of the world on us, but there is a lot that we can do to provide timely intervention. A full blown eating disorder is not just damaging to your health, but is also harder to recover from. Recognizing the warning signs can help to prevent a worsening of the condition and is the best preventive measure.

Here are some of the warning signs you need to look out for in family members or friends who might be afflicted with the disorder. If you feel that you display these symptoms too, you would need to get help.

• Throwing up, or vomiting after meals,

• Refusal to eat, or avoidance of meals, through lies about having already eaten,

• Frequent or occasional fainting,

• Over – exercising,

• Irregular menstrual cycle,

• Increased stress and worry about weight,

• Scarred knuckles resultant from forced vomiting,

• Denial of any abnormality or irregularity.