Some girls don’t see food as a natural part of their day but they struggle with eating badly, and this eating disorder is a bad mental and health state that sometimes needs medical help. It has many forms and types. Since we're here at Fitness Garage caring about your physical health, today we're looking at 6 types of eating disorders.
What is an eating disorder?
An eating disorder is a group of mental conditions that lead to developing bad and unhealthy eating habits, and it starts with an obsession with food and the perfect bodyIt can cause serious health problems that might lead to death. The girl might really restrict what she eats a lot, or on the opposite, she might overeat, or exercise the wrong way, or eat and force herself to throw up to get rid of the food. Eating disorders are common among teenage girls.
Causes of eating disorders:
There are many factors that may cause eating disorders, such as:
- Some psychological factors like family issues at a young age increase the chance of eating disorders. Also, a strong preference for being thin and the desire for the perfect body in every way.
- Pressure from media and advertising pushing the idea that a thin body is the ideal body, and that you should have very little body fat.
- Some doctors say it might come from problems with the hormone levels of serotonin and dopamine.
Types of eating disorders:
There are many types of eating disorders. Each type has different conditions, causes, and symptoms. We'll mention them in the next paragraphs.
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Anorexia nervosa
Girls with anorexia nervosa think they are overweight even though they’re often seriously underweight. They cut calories drastically. Symptoms of this type are:
1- Significant, unhealthy weight loss.
2- Very limited types of allowed food.
3- Constant drive to be thin, ignoring healthy weight.
4- Body weight affecting self-esteem.
5- Constant self-hate and body shaming.
Also, those with this eating disorder often have OCD traits, They are always thinking about food, eating, and calories. They store lots of food they can't eat, try to control their environment and people around them, and exercise way too much and in the wrong way.
These disorders cause weak bones, sick hair loss, infertility, nail problems, and can get way worse in a very dangerous way.
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The nervous illness month
It's another kind of disorder, where the girl eats a lot of food in huge amounts at random times, and can't stop even when painfully full. She doesn't pick a certain food but eats all kinds, often foods she has denied herself for a long time.
They resort to long fasting, vomiting, laxatives, or enemas to get rid of all the food they ate. They might also turn to excessive exercise.
The symptoms may seem similar to you but with some small differences. They all use unhealthy ways to get rid of the food in their body. The symptoms of this type are:
1- Repeated episodes of binge eating.
2- Repeated episodes of getting rid of food in unhealthy ways.
3- Self-esteem affected by weight shape and size.
4- Constant fear of gaining weight even though their weight is normal.
There are some side effects that result from those episodes which are: Sore throat, swelling of saliva glands, wearing down of tooth enamel, tooth decay, irritation in Intestines, reflux, and hormonal disorders, And some cases worsen to death.
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Binge eating disorder
This type is a form of the previous type's development, but here the girl doesn't binge at a specific time. Instead, she binges almost all the time and uses the same ways to get rid of food. These symptoms include:
1- Eating large amounts of food in secret until feeling painfully overfull.
2- Feeling loss of control over your body while eating.
Most often they suffer from extreme weight gain, which leads to many complications like stroke and type 2 diabetes.
Behaviors that come with eating disorders:
There are some behaviors that usually come with eating disorders and they often share most of them, which are:
- Purging: It's a trick many use, like vomiting, enemas, laxatives, diuretics, or overdoing exercise.
- Night Eating Syndrome : Most people with these disorders binge eat during sleep periods.
- Eating Disorders : There are some different symptoms that show up in patients.
Try consulting a doctor or nutritionist to fix your relationship with food, and keep up good eating habits to improve it. You can learn some steps To improve the relationship, start here.
