Eating Disorders

Disorders

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are characterized by a change in habits related to the ingestion of food that have as a consequence an alteration in the absorption of food and that imply an impact on both health and social life. Although there are several types of eating disorders, such as rumination, pica and binge eating, the ones that are most relevant due to their severity are anorexia and bulimia. The cause of these disorders is multiple, since it includes psychological, biological, emotional and social factors. Both anorexia and bulimia are related to self-control problems and emotional problems. Regarding emotional problems, low self-esteem, they focus their self-concept almost exclusively on appearance and weight. These people tend to be perfectionists, which means that changes in their body are never enough and they end up feeling a great discrepancy between who they are and how they would like to be ideally. Another characteristic is that they focus excessively on any change that occurs at this level until they end up developing distortions with respect to their real size. This is when a loop begins, because if there is a distortion in the body image, they will never reach their ideal of beauty. As for self-control difficulties, which occur mainly in bulimic people, there are some symptoms similar to the desire to consume that an addict or compulsive eating patterns may feel.

ANOREXIA

BULIMIA

Causes:

There are several factors that can lead to developing an eating disorder. These are:

Psychological factors:

Low self-esteem Feelings of lack of control of your life Depression and anxiety.

Interpersonal signs:

Troubled social and family relationships Difficulty expressing feelings and emotions Being ridiculed for their weight History of physical or sexual abuse

Social factors:

Cultural standards of beauty that glorify "thinness." Attributing more weight to the body than to the interior.

Biological factors:

Having several relatives with the same disorder and therefore a genetic predisposition Having a tendency to obesity Suffering body changes.

Course and prognosis:

Although these disorders can occur at any age and in any sex, it must be borne in mind that the people most at risk of suffering from it are adolescent girls, since at this time they tend to have more social pressure related to the image and it is also the time when that bodily changes occur. In any case, if signs of this problem are detected, it should not be considered as a normal stage and a professional should be asked for help.