Eating disorders are a growing epidemic worldwide affecting nearly 24 million people. What is even more alarming is that 1/3 (around 8 million) of the people suffering from some type of eating disorder are in the United States. 95% of those people range from age 12-25. Eating disorders are typically thought to only affect women, but there are around 1 million men who have an eating disorder. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of all mental illnesses killing about 10% of those with the disorder. As the number of eating disorders continue to rise, so does awareness, acceptance, and help.
There are different types of eating disorders but a general definition refers to a group of serious conditions characterized by abnormal eating habits that involve either excessive or insufficient food intake that ultimately becomes an obsession with food and weight and leads to extreme detriment to a person’s physical and mental health. The main types of eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder.
Anorexia nervosa is when a person is obsessed with food and being thin, sometimes to the point of deadly self-starvation. They have an extreme fear of gaining weight and restrict themselves from eating more than a small amount or eat nothing at all. The average calorie intake for someone with anorexia nervosa is 600-800 calories. Bulimia is characterized by episodes of bingeing and purging. During these episodes, a person will typically eat a large amount of food in a short time period and then try to rid themselves of the extra calories by vomiting or excessive exercising. A person with bulimia can be a normal weight or even a bit overweight. Binge-eating disorder is when a person eats excessive amounts of food regularly (binge). A person may eat when they’re not hungry and continue eating even after they’re uncomfortably full. After a person binges, they may try to eat normal meals or diet, which triggers a new round of bingeing. People with binge-eating disorders can be a normal weight, overweight or obese.
The exact cause of eating disorders is still not understood. They can be caused by pressure from society, family and friends, personality and emotional disorders, and even biological and genetic factors. Some people are born with a predisposition to it, which can be brought to the surface by things that happen in and around a person’s life. The saying is "Genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger.”
