What are eating disorders?

Eating disorders are not a nutritional problem, but a disturbed way of dealing with food. They range from indiscriminate, compulsive gorging on large amounts of food to refusing to eat anything. Eating disorders correspond to pathological behavior when eating. This behavior is evasive behavior, a reaction to unsatisfactory living conditions, flight, helplessness, refusal and silent protest, but at the same time also resignation and adaptation.

Eating Disorders on the Rise

People with eating disorders are often subject to enormous suffering. This is often neither noticed nor taken seriously by the environment. About 85 percent of those affected are women. Increasingly, men and young girls are also suffering from it. In the specialist literature, reference is increasingly being made to a connection between  obesity  and eating disorders, in particular “restrained eating” and “binge eating”.

Restrained Eating

“Restrained eating” describes an ongoing, willful restriction of food intake for the purpose of weight loss or weight control. It can manifest itself in repeated slimming diets or in constant starvation. This behavior characterizes many normal and overweight people and has become a widespread part of everyday life for many people.

Some authors even speak of a “collective diet behavior”. There are many reasons for restrained eating. Attitudes and values ​​play a major role.

However, study results show that controlled eaters generally weigh no less than those with normal eating habits. They are also more likely to binge eat. Nutritional psychologists are increasingly assuming that restrained eating leads to an unlearning of the normal satiety regulation and thus  can also promote the emergence and maintenance of pathological eating patterns ( anorexia ,  bulimia and binge eating). It is clear that not everyone who diets becomes thin, compulsive to eat or vomit, but the roots of these behaviors often lie in dieting.

Anorexia nervosa

The central feature of anorexia nervosa is extreme restraint in eating. Those affected consume very few calories; they limit themselves to small amounts of “permitted” and “good” foods. In addition, many try to gain or maintain their weight through excessive physical activity, vomiting, or taking appetite suppressants, laxatives, or water tablets.

Excessively restrained eating leads to severe weight loss. Despite being (for others) obviously underweight, anorexics feel overweight. As a result of malnutrition and weight loss, there is a drop in  metabolism , pulse, blood pressure and body temperature, mental and hormonal disorders (with  amenorrhea  as a result), mineral deficiencies,  cardiac arrhythmia  and digestive problems.

Anorexia is a very serious condition. Ten percent of all anorexics die from their disease. Anorexia is much more common in developed countries with food abundance than in poor countries. Girls and young women are particularly affected, with an estimated frequency of 0.1 to 1 percent. According to estimates, every seventh young person is at risk of anorexia.

Eating and vomiting addiction (bulimia)

This clinical picture is characterized by repeated occurrences of binge eating or  food cravings  . The frequency of these binge eating episodes, in which larger amounts of high-energy food are eaten, ranges from once a week to several times a day. In addition to uncontrollable, episodic seizures, the eating behavior of bulimic patients is characterized by severely restrained eating behavior, regular intentional vomiting after an eating attack and a pathological fear of being overweight.

Similar to anorexia nervosa, some sufferers exercise excessively and take laxatives and diuretics to maintain their weight. Bulimics are often normal or even overweight and are therefore not noticed in their environment for a long time. In contrast to anorexia, there is usually an enormous amount of suffering.

Consequential physical  damage from bulimia  is mainly caused by repeated vomiting:

• Inflammation of the esophagus and salivary glands caused by the corrosive effects of stomach acid
• Mineral deficiency (electrolyte deficiency) due to increased loss via the excretion of gastric juice
• Tooth damage caused by  acidification  in the oral cavity
• Stomach ulcers  from overworking the stomach
• Cardiac arrhythmias due to conduction disturbances caused by a shift in electrolyte balance

Bulimia mainly affects women. The frequency is difficult to determine. The number of unreported cases is probably very high. Depending on the study, numbers between 1 and 8 percent are given.

Binge Eating Disorder, Esssucht

Eating  cravings  were included in medical terminology relatively late as pathological. Similar to bulimia, this eating disorder consumes large amounts of calories at once without vomiting the food again.

Out of fear of gaining weight or out of guilt, a strict diet is followed after such an binge eating until the control mechanism breaks down again and a new binge occurs. Those affected are caught in a vicious cycle of eating and starving.

Because binge eating is not counteracted as drastically as with bulimia, obesity often occurs. According to American statistics, 30 percent of overweight people have this eating disorder.