What are Eating Disorders? What types of Eating Disorders are there?
If we look deep into our lives and compare it to the definition of EATING DISORDERS (ED), then we may say that nowadays with the body image culture, the general ideology of perfectionism and other aspects of modern life, then most of us have a type of ED.
What is the definition of ED? ED is “any of a range of mental conditions in which there is a persistent disturbance of eating behaviour and impairment of physical or mental health”. The way a person treats food and the underlying thoughts and feelings that the person has about food and themselves. It is a way of coping with these thoughts, or a way of feeling in control at least of something in their life.
It is a Mental Disorder. ED can be a very serious condition affecting physical, psychological and social function. The vast majority (97%) of people hospitalised for an eating disorder have a co-occurring health condition stemmed from trauma. Mood disorders, like major depression, are the primary underlying condition followed by anxiety disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorder and other.
ED most of the time is diagnosed in young adults and adolescents, but no age or culture is immune to it. It can affect anyone of any age, gender, ethnicity or background in any continent or country. It affects almost 8% of the population and the number is growing.
What is interesting, ED are more prevalent among women than men. A quarter of those with anorexia are male. What is shocking is that men have an increased risk of dying because they are diagnosed much later than women. This may be in part due to the misconception in society that men do not experience eating disorders. According to statistics 15% of women will suffer from an eating disorder by their 40s or 50s, but only less than 30% receive any treatment for it. Many other eating disorders (other than anorexia and bulimia that are widely known) will not be even diagnosed.
With knowledge of these ED types, reasons, misconceptions, consequences and treatment methods may help in dissolving ignorance and help not only in the on time and proper diagnosis, but maybe even avoiding creating the problem in the first place.
Eating is a complicated part of life. It’s affected by all sorts of things like our genes, upbringing, mental health, media imagery, biological changes, food intolerance, pain and even injuries. This is why we see so many different types of eating disorders and each day new and new types are being discovered.
Types of eating disorders (a person may have one or more ED combined):
(These are the most known to the general public and most talked about)
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Anorexia Nervosa
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Bulimia Nervosa
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Binge Eating
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Compulsive Eating
(And these are less known to the general public)
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ARFID - Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
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Orthorexia
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OSFED - Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder
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PICA
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Rumination Disorder
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Bigorexia
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Alcohorexia
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Night Eating Syndrome
These are Eating disorders that we know about and there may be many other we haven’t identified yet. But there is one other thing that I would like to mention here and that is DISORDERED EATING (DE). It is different than Eating disorder, but is very important to know about because it may trigger Eating Disorders. ED and DE share some similarities, but are not the same. Eating disorder is a mental health problem and is considered a clinical diagnosis, whereas DE is not.
So what is DE?
Disordered eating are irregular or inflexible eating patterns like fasting, diet, body detox processes, boredom eating and other behaviour where meals are not eating according to the standard daily meal consumption system. Again this behaviour may trigger Eating disorders.
I will give you a very short description of all the types to be more versed in the problematic so if you notice any of these symptoms in yourself, in your children or in any of your close relations to be able to realise that help is needed.
CONCLUSION
What is important to understand is that ED is a Mental Health issue
and it is not the person’s fault. As mentioned in this article series ED has a
reason it "stuck out it’s teeth”. Either it started because of some
physical issues like stomach pain from different types of intolerance
and allergies and/or it may stem from a deeper mental issue or is
trauma related.
People who have anorexia or ED are said to be very intelligent. According to research, people with anorexia nervosa score 10.8 units and 5.9 units above the average IQ of the normative population. This is why it is often very difficult to recognise ED in people who have it. It is very important for the parents of such a child not to feel guilty that they did not learn about the problem or recognise it earlier. People with such a diagnosis can hide it. It's like addicts. We can even say that PPP is a form of addiction that is very difficult to get rid of. The person with ED uses this addiction to force their mind to focus on something they think they can control. The feeling of success after losing weight is amazing, but 1 kilo, 2, 3, 4 kilos... is not enough and eventually they lose control
With eating disorder treatment it is said that 70% of patients make a full
recovery. However, only 1 in 10 people with an eating disorder will seek and receive treatment.