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What is an Eating Disorder?
Eating disorders such as Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder? include
extreme emotions, attitude and behaviors surrounding weight and food issues.
Eating disorders are serious emotional and physical problems that can have
life-threatening consequences. Both females and males may have eating
disorders. Solutions For Recovery has several programs to help people
recover from eating disorders.
Anorexia
Nervosa is characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.
Symptoms include:
- Refusal to maintain body
with at or above a minimally normal weight for height, body type, age
and activity level
- Intense fear of weight gain or being "fat"
- Feeling "Fat" of overweight despite dramatic weight loss
- Loss of menstrual periods
- Extreme concern with body weight and shape
Bulimia
Nervosa is characterized by a secretive cycle of binge eating followed by
purging. Bulimia includes eating large amounts of food ? more than most
people would eat in a single meal ? in short periods of time, then getting
rid of the food and calories through vomiting, laxative abuse, or
over-exercising.
Symptoms
include:
- Repeated episodes of bingeing and purging
- Feelings of being "out
of control" during a binge period and eating well beyond the point of
comfortable fullness
-
Purging after a binge, typically by self-induced vomiting, abuse of
laxatives, diet ills and /or diuretics, excessive exercising or fasting
-
Frequent dieting
-
Extreme concern with body weight and shape
Binge Eating
Disorder
(also know as Compulsive Overeating) is characterized
primarily by periods of uncontrolled, impulsive, or continuous eating beyond
the point of feeling comfortably full. While there is no purging, the may be
sporadic fasts or repetitive diets an often feelings of shame or self-hatred
after a binge. People who overeat compulsively may struggle with anxiety,
depression, and loneliness, which contribute to the unhealthy episodes of
binge eating. Body weight may vary from normal to mild, moderate, or sever
obesity.
EATING DISORDERS
SURPRISING STATISTICS
Prevalence
- In the United States, conservative estimates indicate that after
puberty, 5-10% of girls and women (5-10 million) and one million boys and
men are struggling with an eating disorder. Because of the secretiveness
associated with eating disorders, many cases are never reported.
-
Over one person's lifetime, at least 50,000 people
will die as a result of their eating disorder.
The Drive for Thinness
- 42% of 1st ? 3rd grade girls
say they want to be "thinner."
- 81% of 10-year olds are "afraid of being fat."
- 55% of 5th- 8th graders said
they "feel fat" or "want to lose weight."
- 11% of 5th-8th graders said
they have fasted to control their weight.
- On any given day, nearly 2/3 of high school and adult
women at "on a diet."
- The average American woman is 5'4" tall and weighs
140 pounds. The average American model is 5'11" and weighs 117 pounds.
- In the 1970s, models ? on average ? were 8%
underweight. Today, the average model is 23% underweight.
- 51% of 9 and 10 year-old girls say they "feel better
about themselves" if they are on a diet.
- 46% of 9-11 year-olds are "sometimes" of "very often"
on a diet.
- 35% of "normal dieters" progress to pathological
dieting. Of those, 20-25% progress to partial of full syndrome eating
disorders.
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