Eating Disorders

Women primarily release their stress and tensions by eating. In one way or another, most women find eating as a comfort. Unfortunately, frequent food binging as a defense mechanism will lead to harmful effects on the body.

Binge Eating Disorder

Are you the type of person who wants to eat when feeling sad or even happy maybe? What do you feel when you're eating a scrumptious meal? Does it make you feel good as if you could go on another mile of walking? Others would say that just eating a piece of chocolate will make them feel better.

Nowadays, many more women are experiencing binge eating disorders (BED). These are uncontrolled cravings made by your emotions or feelings and not from the growling of your stomach. These foods represent different emotions. Foods can become an outlet of expression and a way to hide from one’s problems and insecurities. Thus, when you eat food, you feel more comfortable. Typically, those suffering from binge eating disorders will experience one or more of the following:

1. Eating in isolation to avoid embarrassment over your love of food and avoid your disorder being discovered.
2. Over the norm amount of servings in one sitting.
3. Feeling depressed and guilty after binge eating.
4. Eating large amounts even when not hungry.
5. Eating faster than normal.

Treatment

The first step is to seek help from a nutritionist, psychotherapist or social worker. The use of antidepressants and drug therapy may also help.

Here are some of the more common eating disorders in society today:

Anorexia Nervosa: Life-threatening and where a person fails to maintain a minimum healthy body weight. Results from self-imposed starvation and excessive weight loss.

Binge Eating Disorder: Discussed above. Life-threatening. Recurrent episodes of over-eating and feeling depressed afterwards.

Bulimia: Severe life-threatening disorder. Self-induced vomiting in an effort to lose weight even though one may not even be overweight. Usually those suffering bulimia will engage in binge eating to soothe their depression, and then immediately after try to reverse this overeating with self-induced vomiting.

• Serious Emotional Problems: Extreme emotions, attitudes and behaviours can send us to either over-eating or under-eating.
• Diets: Many researchers and practitioners have realised that many of those diagnosed with an eating disorder were on a diet at the time of being diagnosed. The constant process of monitoring calories, watching your weight, restricted meals, repetitive cycles of gaining weight, losing weight, gaining weight (the yoyo affect) can cause an eating disorder. It's estimated that at any one time, about 40~50% of women in the USA are on a diet.