More about EATING DISORDERS
The NHS states: "An eating disorder is when you have an unhealthy attitude to food, which can take over your life and make you ill. It can involve eating too much or too little, or becoming obsessed with your weight and body shape. But there are treatments that can help, and you can recover from an eating disorder. Men and women of any age can get an eating disorder, but they most commonly affect young women aged 13 to 17 years old".
Eating disorders can be a way of coping with feelings or situations that are making the person unhappy, angry, depressed, stressed, or anxious. They are not the fault of the person suffering, and no one chooses to have an eating disorder.
The most common eating disorders are:
Anorexia Nervosa – when you try to keep your weight as low as possible by not eating enough food, exercising too much, or both.
Bulimia – when you sometimes lose control and eat a lot of food in a very short amount of time (binging) and are then deliberately sick, use laxatives, restrict what you eat, or do too much exercise to try to stop yourself gaining weight.
Binge Eating Disorder (BED) – when you regularly lose control of your eating, eat large portions of food all at once until you feel uncomfortably full, and are then often upset or guilty.
Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED) – when your symptoms don't exactly match those of anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder, but it doesn't mean it's a less serious illness.
OSFED is the most common, then binge eating disorder and bulimia. Anorexia is the least common.
You can recover from an eating disorder, but it may take time and recovery will be different for everyone. Treatment will be different depending on the type of eating disorder you have, but will usually involve some kind of talking therapy.
Please do not hesitate to contact one of our specialists, below, to discuss your concerns in more detail.
For more in depth information on eating disorders from the NHS click here.