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.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

How to Deal With Eating Disorders in Your Child

It is not uncommon to see a ten or eleven year old child getting treated for eating disorders. A child with eating disorder at this age may be suffering from the problem of emotional stress. He/she may inherit stress and anxiety from his/her parent. If your child has such a disorder, you may not know how to handle it. The problem becomes worse, if your child does not want to communicate with you freely.

If you identify that your child has an eating disorder, you need to remain calm. Most of the time, the parents become very nervous and make the child feel bad. This can aggravate the problem. It is often advisable to decide on the best possible action to help the child to get rid of this condition. You can write down some things before starting the conversation with your child. This helps to organize the thoughts of the child and to get a great solution.

It is important to make the child to communicate freely with you. You can achieve this by involving him/her in some family discussions. You can even let him/her know the family problems. If your child understands that his/her parents also face some emotional stress, he/she can realize that stress is not an abnormal thing. He/she may be then ready to communicate with you and reveal his/her own issues.

You need to make your child to get into an even tempered mood, so that he/she can communicate in a natural manner. You need to remember that creating an intense argument cannot bring the desirable results. Besides, it may make the situation worse. Intense arguments may even create gap between you and your child. Instead, you can try frank discussion that does not hurt your child in anyway. You need to make your child understand that you are there with him/her to help to come out of the problem. If he/she feels confident, he/she can be open in discussions.

Eating disorders are not simple issues and they need to be treated immediately. The only thing you need to know is to keep yourself calm and relaxed. You need to confront your child as quickly as possible so that treatment can be started early. Eating disorder can be cured easily and quickly, if the child is willing to take treatment. You just make your child to get out of his/her fear first and converse with him/her in a sense that there is nothing to panic.



Autor: Helen R. Miller

Helen R. Miller is a diet control fanatic, who has lost over 70 pounds of body fat. She shares her amazing story of how she did it through her weight and diet control blog.


Added: October 10, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

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