Must Read: What You Need To Know About Eating Disorder.

Healthy eating is more than just eating food with the right nutritive content and amount, it goes beyond that. Healthy eating also involves how the food is consumed. Eating food with the right nutritive content and amount in a disordered manner would not be termed healthy eating.

Not everyone is familiar with the term”eating disorder”.This is because it is a rare disorder amongst Africans and hardly diagnosed in other regions. It is also because most people don’t see it as a disorder, rather they associate it with mental conditions like anxiety, depression, and obstructive-compulsive disorder. Though these conditions are likely to be symptoms and causative agents of eating disorders they don’t necessarily birth eating disorders as seen in most cases.” Eating disorder is known to be a disorder on its own, thus, people should be aware of it.

What is eating disorder?

Eating disorder is a mental condition characterized by abnormal eating behaviors which affect physical and mental health. It involves the use of laxatives and hard substances to induce, reduce or prevent appetite as the case may be. It also involves eating and then overworking to expel the food leading to malnutrition and underweight. Sometimes, the case may the other way round leading to obesity.

With research and studies, this disorder has been known to be associated more with females than males. And also associated with teenagers and people in their early 20s than seniors.

There are different situations and episodes that brings about eating disorder. Hence bringing into light the types of eating disorders.

Types of Eating Disorders

These eating disorder are mostly termed as mental disorder in regards to standard medical manuals like ICD-10 and DSM-5.

Anorexia nervosa(AS)

This type of eating disorder is associated with the fear of gaining weight hence taking extreme preventive measures like over exercising, extreme dieting, and taking overdoses of drugs to expel food already eaten. People in this condition are seen to be underweight and malnourished.

People that are likely to encounter this condition are ballet dancers and models who thinks being overweight is a threat to their career. Amenorrhea, which is loss of menstrual period, may be encountered by females undergoing this disorder as a result of weight loss.

Bulimia Nervosa (BS)

This disorder is characterized by overeating (eating even when satisfied) followed by an inducement to expel the food from the body which could be in form of; vomiting, taking laxatives and diuretics to purge the food out, extreme fasting and vigorous exercises. Unlike AS which leads to underweight, people who encounter BS still maintain their body weight or little less below the average body weight.

Binge Eating Disorder (BED)

This type of eating disorder involves the over consumption of food without compensatory measures like dieting and vomiting to expel the food. Unlike AS and BS where these measures are needed.

This behavior is often accompanied by feeling bad and ashamed when encountered. Thus, making the affected always eat alone for the fear of being ridiculed. The aftermath of this condition is likely obesity.

Pica

This type of eating disorder is characterized by the consumption of non-nutritive substances .The choice of these substances is made by its availability or age of the affected. These substances could be clay, chalk, paper, soap or hair.This type of eating disorder is mostly associated with mental conditions like schizophrenia, intellectual disorder and autism spectrum disorder. Sometimes causes like pregnancy, iron deficiency  anemia and malnutrition could lead to the  onset of this disorder.

Rumination Disorder

This type of eating disorder encompasses the repeated regurgitation of food which is either re-chewed, re-swallowed, or spit out. The disorder is fully diagnosed when this behavior persists for one month. Rumination disorder is distinct from the rest type of disorders and does not occur during their episodes.

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (AFFID)

This involves a lack of interest in eating food. This lack of interest could be as a result of the texture, color, and smell of the food, or possibly it could be due to fear from aversive consequences of eating.The aftermath of this disorder is weight loss, nutritional deficiency and failed growth trajectory.

Causes of Eating Disorders

Though there are no known scientific causes of eating disorders, there are factors that could prompt, influence and sustain their occurrence. Below are these factors.

• Genetics: There is a 50% chance of developing one of the eating disorders when a relative or family member has been diagnosed previously with one. This lead to susceptibility to eating disorder in that family.
• Psychological: Eating disorders are classified as “mental disorders” in the diagnostic and statistical manual of Mental Health Disorders. Mental health conditions like personality disorders and comorbid could birth eating disorders when encountered. Eating disorders could develop during or after the condition.
• Personality Trait: There are various childhood personality traits associated with eating disorders. During adolescence, these traits intensify following hormonal changes associated with puberty plus the perceived expectation of body image.
• Celiac Diseases:People with gastrointestinal disorders are more likely to develop eating disorders particularly restrictive eating disorders. During the illness, eating patterns may occur that are likely eating disorders that could be mastered.
• Environmental influences: such as child maltreatment, social isolation, parental influence, peer pressure, cultural pressure, trauma, food insecurity, and heterosexism.

Prevention of Eating Disorders

Prevention set out to provide healthy living before negative occurrences. For eating disorder to be prevented, it should be tackled from the grass root. Children as well as teenagers and adult should be enlightened on topics that deals with emotional and physical awareness of their body. Topics such as; Emotional bites(asking questions that involves emotions), saying NO to teasing, body talks and making people realize that fitness comes in all sizes.

Final thought

Eating disorder is a condition that should be critically looked out for using the symptoms as diagnosis. In addition, once suspected, a physician(Psychiatrist) should be consulted. Once encountered, it becomes difficult to control as it takes physical and emotional measures to bring one out of it. Social media advocating body images to the detriment of people’s emotions should be mitigated. Parents and seniors should be aware of the dangers associated with this condition in other to dissuade the young ones from imbibing them.

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