In A Complicated Relationship - With Food? Four Common Eating Disorders That Go Unmentioned
In order to maintain a positive lifestyle and a healthy body, one must ensure they are not falling into patterns of disordered eating, as these patterns are harmful not only to physical stamina but to mental well-being. Unfortunately, restrictive eating disorders in particular have been covertly condoned and even encouraged by aspects of our culture, and touted as a "glamorous" disease to have as a tool to control one's weight (and therefore one's self-worth).
Eating disorders can affect everyone and can be caused by any number of reasons, but most importantly, it is important to recognize that the range of eating disorders extends far beyond the realm of the familiar anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, although this fact is not generally recognized by the world of popular health.
It is up to you to end this cycle. So before you continue your journey to fitness, I encourage you to get a little more information. Click below for a description of four extremely common food-related disorders you might have never considered, and ask yourself: Considering your past and current tendencies, are you at risk?
Also known as compulsive exercise, athletica nervosa, obligatory exercise, and exercise addiction, anorexia is a potentially life-threatening condition. The person with anorexia athletica no longer enjoys exercising, but feels obligated to do so to justify any manner of food intake.
People who suffer from this condition - most prominently females between the ages of 12 and 19 - may experience a sense of guilt and anxiety when missing a workout and not even sickness or injury can stop them from fulfilling their perceived need for exercise. Individuals with anorexia athletica may:
- Repeatedly exercise beyond the requirements for good health.
- Be fanatical about weight and diet.
- Steal time from work, school, and relationships to exercise.
- Strive to achieve and master ever more difficult challenges
- Forget that physical activity can be fun.
- Define self-worth in terms of performance.
- Rarely be satisfied with athletic achievements. Small satisfactions are fleeting and they do not savor victory; they push on to the next challenge immediately.
- Justify excessive behavior by defining themselves as a "special" or "elite" athlete.
2. Body Dysmorphic Disorder (the "funhouse mirror" effect)
BDD, or Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a preoccupation or obsession with a defect in visual appearance, whether that be an actual slight imperfection or an imagined one. Some example of this would be obsessing to the point of severe depression (sometimes including thoughts about or attempts at suicide) over physical attributes such as freckles; a large nose, blotchy skin, wrinkles, acne, scarring. Though the preoccupation can include any part of the body, areas of the face and head, specifically the skin, hair and nose, are most common.
People suffering with BDD may often have a low self-esteem and unreasonable fears of rejection from others due to their perceived ugliness. Some sufferers realize that their perception of the "defect" is distorted, but find the impulse to think about it uncontrollable.
There are two types of Body Dysmorphic Disorder -- the non-delusional type -- and the delusional type (where the person actually has hallucinations of a completely imagined defect, or an imagined gross exaggeration of a small defect). The delusional form is less common and more severe.
Men and women living with BDD may practice unusually compulsive rituals to look at, hide, cover and/or improve their defect(s). They may spend a great deal of time looking at themselves in anything mirror-like and trying to convince others of how ugly they are. They may be compulsive in searching out doctors to treat them with medications and/or plastic surgery. Patients may go to any lengths to improve their appearance, including using methods that are dangerous. Some may even attempt their own surgery, or commit suicide.
Orthorexia Nervosa is an obsession with a "pure" diet, where it interferes with a person's life. It becomes a way of life filled with chronic concern for the quality of food being consumed. When the person suffering with Orthorexia Nervosa slips up from wavering from their "perfect" diet, they may resort to extreme acts of further self-discipline including even stricter regimens and fasting.
Orthorexia Nervosa should only be characterised when it is in the long-term (paying attention to healthy food for a few weeks where it becomes a normal and healthy routine not obsessed over, would not be considered a disorder), when it has a significant negative impact on an individual's life (thinking about food to avoid the stresses of life, thinking about how food is prepared to avoid negative emotions, thinking about food the majority of each individual's day), and where food rituals are not better explained by something like religious rites (such as in the Orthodox Jewish religion).
4. EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified)
EDNOS often cannot be labeled, but the ramifications of even an unspecified eating disorder can be just as severe as anorexia and bulimia. Having an "Eating Disorder not Otherwise Specified" can mean a number of things. It can mean the individual suffers from Anorexia but still gets their period; It can mean they may still be an "average healthy weight" but be suffering Anorexia; It can mean the sufferer equally participates in some Anorexic as well as Bulimic behaviors (sometimes referred to as being Bulimirexic).
Just as it is important to remember that doctors can make mistakes, it is also important to keep in mind that it has not been until very recently (in the last 10 years) that awareness on the subject Eating Disorders has really begun to surface. People are frequently confused (including doctors) about the real differences between Anorexia and Bulimia (Anorexia essentially being self-starvation, and Bulimia being defined as going through binge and purge cycles - simply put), and often times know nothing at all about Binge-Eating Disorder.
For example, a doctor relies completely on his diagnostic manuals and reads the criteria to diagnose an individual as having Anorexia. He finds that his patient has regularly practiced self-starvation techniques, thinks of herself unrealistically as overweight, and seems to be hard on herself... BUT she still has her monthly period (the diagnostic criteria states that there must be loss of monthly menstrual cycles). He may technically diagnose the patient as having "An Eating Disorder not Otherwise Specified".
Another example would be that of a person suffering through binge and purge cycles once a week, who feels that they are overweight and who feels depressed. (The diagnostic criteria states that the sufferer must binge and purge, on average, at least twice a week.)
Practically speaking, in the first example the person suffers from Anorexia and the second suffers from Bulimia. Clinically speaking, according to the "text book" they would suffer from "An Eating Disorder not Otherwise Specified". In either case, both people are suffering with an Eating Disorder, both are in danger of potentially deadly physical complications, and both need to make a choice for recovery.
