Overview

An eating disorder is a compulsion to eat, or avoid eating, that negatively affects both one's physical and mental health. Eating disorders are all encompassing. They affect every part of the person's life. According to the authors of Surviving an Eating Disorder, "feelings about work, school, relationships, day-to-day activities and one's experience of emotional well being are determined by what has or has not been eaten or by a number on a scale." Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the most common eating disorders generally recognized by medical classification schemes, with a significant diagnostic overlap between the two. Together, they affect an estimated 5-7% of females in the United States during their lifetimes. There is a third type of eating disorder currently being investigated and defined - Binge Eating Disorder. This is a chronic condition that occurs when an individual consumes huge amounts of food during a brief period of time and feels totally out of control and unable to stop their eating. It can lead to serious health conditions such as morbid obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Anorexia Help - Tips and Strategies For Anorexics

Anorexia help for yourself or a loved one can often be difficult to find, but hopefully these tips and strategies for anorexics will at least give you a starting point.

Do have an immense fear of gaining weight? Are you conscious of the calories of the food that you eat and limit yourself to not more than 500 calories a day? Do you suffer frequent episodes of faintness, tiredness or fatigue?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then you are in a situation where you starve yourself voluntarily. This eating disorder is known as anorexia, which is commonly characterized by an enormous fear of gaining weight coupled with voluntary starvation and other means of losing weight.

Anorexia and bulimia can be deadly to your health if left untreated over a period of time. A victim of these eating disorders can count on suffering several body dysfunctions. Often times, they find themselves in a hospital bed because of undernourishment. If the food needed by your body to function and heal itself is not consumed, your body deteriorates over a span of time.

Once your body reaches its limits, you will suffer the consequences of the voluntary malnourishment you undertook in order to lose weight. As such, early treatment for anorexia is strongly recommended in order to avoid complications.

People who fall victim to this disorder need anorexia help tips and strategies in order to conquer it. Since anorexia is psychological in nature, it can be treated in a psychological way. The most urgent treatment for anorexics is to gain weight. This is needed especially in extreme cases involving the victim's hospitalization.

In the U.S., involuntary hospitalization can be done under the mental health law. The victim can be hospitalized even against his or her will wherein forced weight gain shall be imposed. This isn't the most ideal method, but sometimes drastic measures need to be taken. One other option is an anorexia-bulimia home treatment program.

Psychotherapy is another treatment for people suffering from anorexia. Here the victim or patient will undergo sessions of psychological treatments aiming to persuade the latter into having a normal eating routine. The counselors or dietitians will explain to the patient the complications that anorexia may bring together with the proper ways of nourishing the body without having to gain weight. Psychotherapeutic treatments usually consist of 5-10 sessions. After undergoing this kind of treatment, the anorexic is now better equipped with knowledge about anorexia and how to conquer the disorder.

Other anorexia help tips and strategies include nourishment rehabilitation. In this type of treatment, the anorexic undergoes a series of nutrition and food related tutorials and discussions. The different types of food, together with the importance of proper food intake are taught to the anorexic in a detailed manner.

Once the anorexic understands these, he or she will be given a diet to follow composing of food that does not promote weight gain, but at the same time gives the body the proper vitamins and nutrients needed. This rehabilitation can last for months until the anorexic has conquered the fear of weight gain.



Autor: Mark Bridges

To learn more about the anorexia home treatment program, visit Anorexia-Bulimia Home Treatment Program. For more facts about anorexia causes and treatments, go to >> Eating Disorder Treatments And Causes


Added: August 3, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

1 comment:

Brwneyedgrl08 said...

A really great informational site with tons of helpful and useful information about the different types of eating disorders, including binge eating is www.eatingdisorderclinic.org.

Not only is there helpful information about the different eating disorders, but it also has the symptoms and causes of each, as well as the different treatment options that are available for each eating disorder type.

I found it to be very helpful.. I highly recommend taking a look at www.eatingdisorderclinic.org for help.