Advertisements on television, peer pressure, and the need to be accepted socially can have a major impact on a person’s mind when it comes to maintaining a body image that he or she can be proud of and can happily flaunt to impress others. Food is not merely a source of nutrients for your body. It has a lot to do with your emotions; hence, your cravings may vary as per your changing moods. You may reward yourself for having successfully achieved something that you were striving for by feasting on your hot favorites. You could also simply eat to comfort yourself.
Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder are the commonest eating disorders. Anorexia and bulimia nervosa are both associated with the obsession to lose weight and maintain a slim figure. Ours, being a patriarchal society, women seem to be under more pressure to look good. That is possibly why both these disorders are more common in the female population. Men are accepted in all shapes, sizes, and colors. It really doesn’t seem to matter whether they are handsome or ugly, hairy or bald, smelly or fragrant.
While an anorexic person keeps cutting down on food and sticks to ‘diet foods’ to approach size zero, a bulimic individual eats normally or even in excess and then tries to undo what was done by inducing vomiting, purging, or overexerting to burn those consumed calories. The sad part is that these people are not even aware of the adverse effects of these activities. Frequent vomiting is known to traumatize the food-pipe and also cause erosion of the enamel of the teeth due to the acid that is spewed out from the stomach.
Purging not only damages the large intestines but also causes obstinate constipation. Besides, since most of the absorption and assimilation of nutrients occurs in the small intestines, purging is of no use anyway. Hypergymnasia or excessive exercising to shed weight only leads to muscle sprains, ligament tears, and other medical complications. The patients make a laughing stock of themselves by exercising anywhere and everywhere, even at odd hours. The onlookers do not realize that the person indulging in such untimely activities is actually suffering from a psychological problem.
Binge eaters often eat for the sake of eating and not because they are hungry. They try to fill up some void in their life with food that seems to comfort them temporarily. They cannot control themselves and can eat till they get physically uncomfortable. This is often followed by feelings of embarrassment, guilt, despair, or disgust. Such people tend to become obese and are at increased risk of suffering from diseases like diabetes mellitus, heart attacks, stroke, osteoarthritis, and high blood pressure. The only way of helping individuals with eating disorders is through behavioral counseling, diet correction, and weight normalization. In some cases, hospitalization may become necessary.
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Tags: Advertisements, Anorexia nervosa, Anorexic, Behavioral counseling, Binge eaters, Binge eating disorder, Bulimia nervosa, Bulimic, Diabetes mellitus, Eating disorders, Heart attacks, High Blood Pressure, Hypergymnasia, Nutrients, Osteoarthritis, Overexerting, Peer pressure, Purging, Stroke, Vomiting
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