Food is essential to our health and must always be present in our lives. As rational animals, people not only get nourishment from food but also derive pleasure and satisfaction from eating. However, there are also some people who suffer from an eating disorder that is characterized either by a grossly excessive or an extremely insufficient intake of food that severely harms their physical and emotional health.
While its causes are complex and poorly understood, an eating disorder may begin with a person eating smaller or larger than the usual amount of food. Then, at some point, the abnormal food intake goes out of control. Two extreme forms of eating disorder are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Anorexia is marked by an intense fear of gaining weight that results in an unrelenting desire to shed weight through excessive dieting and exercise.
Due to starvation diet, anorexics typically become emaciated and, over time, are ten times more likely to die from the eating disorder. Bulimia, on the other hand, is characterized by episodes of eating excessive amounts of food followed by an overwhelming sense of guilt that drives the person to induce vomiting.
The frequent cycle of binge eating and induced vomiting eventually turns into an obsession or addiction. Although the prospects of recovery from this type of food disorder is better, a bulimic will more likely suffer from gastrointestinal problems, mineral imbalance and dental problems over the course of the illness.
An eating disorder has a lot more to do with the mind than hunger or the food itself. While its exact cause is elusive despite many years of study, many experts believe that it stems from social and psychological underpinnings. While it is treatable, the direct and indirect consequences of an eating disorder is grave and potentially life-threatening.
Recently, medical researcher began exploring the possibility that an eating disorder may also have a biological cause. Armed with the belief that it is rooted on a brain disorder, scientists have brought to the fore the science of genetics and neuroimaging to determine what makes a person pre-disposed to the eating disorder so that it can be nipped in the bud before it is too late.
At the moment, medicinal treatment plans and family-based psychotherapy tailored to the afflicted person’s needs prove to be effective in treating the various forms of eating disorder. In many cases, hospital admission is recommended to treat severe malnutrition or remove suicidal thinking or tendencies.
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