Eating disorders
By: Sara Azzi Class: D2
Introduction
This flyer contains information about eating disorders, specifically anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder. What are eating disorders? Eating disorders are bad eating habits, such as eating little to nothing or eating too much food at once. There are many different types of eating disorders. This flyer will give you information about some, and will give you ways you can maintain your health when it comes to eating. This information is important to know because eating disorders can be life threatening!
10 Useful Facts
Eating Disorders are very common in America, and they seem to be becoming more and more common. 1 or 2 out of every 100 students may have one.
There are many different types of eating disorders, but the two most common types are anorexia nervosa (anorexia) and bulimia nervosa (bulimia). People with anorexia have a constant fear of gaining weight, so they eat almost nothing, and exercise constantly. When they do eat, they become obsessed with counting the calories and if they feel they have eaten too much food, then they will try to make themselves throw up. Anorexia is a very dangerous disorder because people with it can become extremely underweight.
Bulimia is not very different from anorexia. People with bulimia might binge eat, then try to get rid of it by forcing themselves to throw up. Or they would exercise all the time. These things can become dangerous over time - physically and emotionally. They can also lead to compulsive behaviors.
To have bulimia, a person must be binge eating at least once a week, or a few times a month. Binge eating is different from “pigging out” on pizza or something unhealthy, and then going to the gym the next day and eating healthier foods.
People with bulimia eat a large amount of food at once (usually junk food) and usually in secret. They sometimes eat food that is uncooked or frozen, or even from the trash. They have an extremely hard time when trying to stop the eating. Most people with bulimia purge afterwards by vomiting, or excessive exercise.
People with anorexia are usually very skinny and underweight and people with bulimia can be average weight or overweight.
Binge eating disorder is when a person binges on food, usually more than once a week, but doesn't try to get rid of it.
Anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder involve unhealthy eating patterns that begin gradually and get to the point where the person feels like they can’t control himself/herself.
Someone with anorexia might: Become very thin or frail, be obsessed with eating, food, and weight control, weigh himself/herself repeatedly, only eat certain foods or become depressed.
Someone with bulimia might: fear weight gain, constantly be unhappy with body size, shape and weight, only eat diet or low fat foods (except for when binging), or spend most of his/her time working out or exercising.
Maintaining Your Health
To get rid of a person’s eating disorder, therapy or counseling is a good way to do it. Family therapy is also important because it’s important to have family members supporting each other.
Someone with an eating disorder must learn to be patient and how to like their body. Choose your food carefully but try not to become too obsessed with what you eat. Be active but not overly active.
If you start noticing someone hardly ever eating, or binge eating, get them help as soon as possible.
If you start noticing yourself hardly eating anything or binge eating, then make sure you tell someone about it and try to stop.
Always try to keep a positive body image!
Work Cited
http://teenshealth.org/en/teens/eat-disorder.html?ref=search#
http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/statistics.htm
http://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/statistics-studies