Since the 1930s the incidence of eating disorders has been steadily increasing every decade. Approximately 10 million American females and 1 million American males are struggling with an eating disorder and many more individuals go undiagnosed. Eating disorders are defined as a recurrent pattern of dysfunctional eating behaviors and habits associated with adverse mental, medical and social consequences. According to the American Psychological Association eating disorders are broken into three categories: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.
Anorexia Nervosa – characterized by extreme restriction of dietary intake due to an intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat even though the individual falls around or below ~85% of their ideal body weight along with severe body image distortions.
Bulimia Nervosa – fluctuations through regular cycles of binge eating (at least twice per week) accompanied by feelings of loss of control followed by compensatory behaviors; compensatory behaviors could be purging (use of laxatives or vomiting) or non-purging (excessive exercise or calorie restriction).
Binge Eating Disorder – describes individuals who experience binge-eating cycles characterized by consumption of massive amounts of food with lack of control and uncomfortable fullness even in the lack of hunger; unlike Bulimia Nervosa individuals with binge eating disorder do not participate in compensatory behaviors.
Unfortunately, a larger percent of the population may suffer from many sub-clinical disordered eating patterns and body image distortions that go undiagnosed and untreated.
• Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives (Neumark-Sztainer, 2005).
• 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner (Collins, 1991).
• 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat (Mellin et al., 1991).
• 46% of 9-11 year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets, and 82% of their families are “sometimes”or “very often” on diets (Gustafson-Larson & Terry, 1992).
• 91% of women recently surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting, 22% dieted “often” or “always” (Kurth et al., 1995).
Disordered eating behaviors include unhealthy and inaccurate thoughts, feeling or habits focused around food and body image. These could include preoccupation with weight and diet including excessive or frequent weighing, frequent “dieting”, fasting or meal skipping, eliminating certain “bad” foods all together and the habitual use of diet aids and supplements. All of these behaviors over time can lead to increased risk of developing an eating disorder. It has been shown that 35% of “normal dieters” will progress to “pathological dieters” and about a quarter of pathological dieters will progress into partial or full eating disorders.
However there is hope for individuals struggling with all forms of eating disorders and disordered eating. With the help of a qualified interdisciplinary team consisting of a licensed mental health provider and a registered dietitian individuals can, with time, completely recover from an eating disorder.
The best way to start the healing process is to seek appropriate help – the sooner the better! Contact the Eating Disorder Coalition of Tennessee for more information about where and how to receive help: http://www.edct.net/
A great way to get more information about eating disorders is to attend the EDCT Event on NOV. 8th "Cracking the Hunger Code" with Author Anita Johnson, PhD. This is a totally Free Event at the University Center of UT!
References:
1) All statistics were taken from the National Eating Disorder Association website. http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
2) American Psychological Association http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/eating.aspx
3) The Elisa Project http://www.theelisaproject.org/
4) The Academy for Eating Disorders http://www.aedweb.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home
Photo Credit: Katherine Evans via www.sxc.hu
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