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.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Facts About Anorexia Nervosa - Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Some common facts about anorexia nervosa, more commonly known as "anorexia", is that it is a psychiatric eating illness characterized by tremendously low body weight coupled with the excessive fear of gaining weight. People suffering from this kind of eating sickness are commonly known as "anorexics".

Anorexics starve themselves by relentlessly limiting the amount of food they consume because of the extreme fear of becoming fat. Their eating habits originate from this fear, especially women and adolescent girls. As such, the after effect is that these people become very thin and their weight is usually over 15 percent below their normal body weight.

Anorexics, although they are thin and skinny, believe that they are overweight. Driven by this fear, they do tedious workouts and exercises. Some even take laxatives and do not eat or drink anything within any given day. Even though they have become thin overall, they still have the mindset that they have gained weight.

There are cases of people becoming extremely ill and in some cases, the anorexic even goes through a near death experience. People suffering from anorexia in general are among the top level of society and people occupying professions that require thinness or being skinny, like dancing and theater acting.

Anorexics often develop bizarre eating practices and they usually refuse to eat in other people's presence. Some of these anorexics will eat a full meal, and then afterward, force themselves to vomit everything they have consumed. Most of them limit themselves to less than 500 calorie intake per day while turning down any kind of food with fat or sugar in it. These anorexics also have a tendency to overuse laxatives or water pills so that they won't gain even a quarter of a pound of weight.

Anorexia can be diagnosed by comparing the weight of a person to the expected weight of another person of the same sex, age, height and weight. Once these differences in the margin of weight and other factors are noted, further tests will be initiated, like heart and lung checks, blood pressure monitoring, and skin and hair examination. There may also be additional tests regarding the blood and even X-rays.

Once anorexia nervosa is detected, the treatment for it needs to begin immediately. As of today, there are no known medicines to treat this kind of eating disorder, but that does not mean it cannot be cured. Since it is both a type of physical and emotional problem, the initial step is to understand the problem.

Know the different facts about anorexia first by consulting a dietitian, a doctor, and a counselor. These people will help anorexics get through this kind of illness through counseling and other forms of guidance and instructions.

Therapy is usually the first form of treatment for anorexia, but can get quite expensive and is, quite frankly, a crapshoot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But there is a home treatment program available that has helped countless anorexics and is endorsed by leading physicians.



Autor: Mark Bridges

To learn more about the anorexia home treatment program, visit MomPleaseHelp Anorexia Home Treatment Program. For more facts about anorexia causes and treatments, go to Anorexia Support and Treatment


Added: July 28, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

No comments: