Eating Disorders - A Matter of Willpower

The human body is typically designed to heal and recover from disease, illnesses, and disorders that a person may experience in the course of their lives. It may take them some time to do so, but for the most part, people are largely able to recover from most of these illnesses, diseases, and disorders. There are, however, some disorders that tend to affect both the body as well as the mind of the person that is afflicted with the condition. One example of this are the various eating disorders that more and more people all over the world appear to be developing in the course of their lives. An eating disorder is a particular point of concern because of the effect it can have on a person, not only does it deprive the person of much needed nutrients needed in daily life, or conversely, it causes a person to eat much more than what is needed by the body and considered to be safe, but an eating disorder also significantly affects the mind of a person, making the person think that the erroneous eating habit that they had developed because of the eating disorder is not harmful to them in any way. In some cases, people do acknowledge the damage that an eating disorder can bring to them, but they feel that they are powerless to do anything about it, so they will continue to give in to the hazardous habit. In some cases, the person is absolutely afraid that people might discover that they have an eating disorder, and they will do their best to try to hide or deny that they are indeed afflicted with an eating disorder. This act only serves to exacerbate the condition, since people will often choose to believe that a person is just indeed having a bad day and that it is affecting the way they eat rather than attribute the change in eating habits to an eating disorder.

In cases wherein people tend to curb the way they eat, like when they are afflicted with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, they will have an irrational fear of gaining any amount of weight, and will often have a distorted view of how they really look, often seeing themselves as being overweight when they are already dangerously underweight. When this behavior manifests, the disorder has already reached such a severity that will already require intervention, since most people already in this stage will not have the willpower themselves to seek medical attention.

In cases wherein people tend to binge or overeat, they are typically afflicted with the binge eating disorder. This disorder is usually triggered by emotional or psychological stress. People with this disorder tend to eat excessive amounts of food when they feel bothered, disturbed, or depressed. In some cases, this disorder is so bad that the person afflicted with it will take any excuse at all to binge on food, thereby making them gain a significant amount of weight. This disorder creates a vicious cycle of its own, since unhappy people who have this disorder comfort themselves by eating, and when they eat they also become equally unhappy, and the cycle goes on.

The issue to address here is how to best help people with eating disorders gain enough willpower to affect a change in their eating habits, and how to affect a positive mind set in them enough to allow them to develop proper eating habits and maintain those proper eating habits.

Autor: Paul Aragones

If you want to know more about eating disorders and what options you have to treat it, you can visit this link http://eatingdisordertreatmentoptions.blogspot.com/.

Added: July 5, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/