Eating Disorders
Anorexia Nervosa/Anorexia AN
(a medical condition): noun
An eating disorder identified often but not always by low body weight; restriction of food, feelings, and activities; fear of gaining weight; adheres to a strong desire to be thin or as small as possible. The disorder causes clients to see themselves as heavy or big when in reality they are light and small. When asked about having an eating disorder a client typically denies and relates the question in a defensive stance. Common behaviors are weighing themselves a lot, eating small portions; restricting or eating only certain food groups; and or excessive exercise. When and if they do eat it is often unbearable and beyond uncomfortable being full. Common side effects are osteoporosis, infertility, heart damage/bradycardia, hair loss, growth of hair on limbs/belly, and or lack of periods in women.
Restricting food intake and preoccupation with weight is a way to try to balance and cancel out being buffeted around by waves of change the you cannot control focusing on food and weight gives a temporary false sense of being in the driver’s seat
Bulimia Nervosa/Bulimia BN
(a medical condition): noun
An eating disorder that follows a cycle of bingeing and then purging in some way using behaviors such as and not limited to self-induced vomiting, exercise, laxative using to reverse the intake during the binge. A binge is a behavior or pattern of eating a ton of food in a short period of time, often and not always done in secret, alone, and at a certain time of the day. A binge can be comprised of any food group. Purging is the attempt of the client to remove the food consumed during the binge. Most clients are not below a “normal body weight” making the physical observation of the disorder harder to identify. When a client has Bulimia their knuckles are sore and the enamel on their teeth starts to break down, in some clients resulting in tooth decay and loss.
Feelings are feelings meant to be felt! When disordered eating enters we use food or restrict food instead of allowing feelings to be felt !!!
Binge Eating Disorder BED
(a medical condition): noun
Binge Eating Disorder is a newer term to identify a client’s behavior. The client binges without purging. The new term was brought on to separate clients who binge like a client with Bulimia, however, a binge eater typically does not purge as a compensatory behavior after the binge. Binge eaters compulsively eat sometimes in secret at night or in their cars. Binge eating clients experience social and emotional complications as well as struggle with attention and time management. Binge eating is one of the most common eating disorders in adults and there are less research and coverage in the media about this often “accepted” condition. A binge eating client tends to be overweight.
Often clients think they can will their way to stopping and have an “addiction” to food, which the research does not support that addiction to a food is possible.
Start today. Tomorrow may never come. No matter how far down a “wrong road you go you can always turn back”
Orthorexia Nervosa: noun
Orthorexia Nervosa is an obsession with clean eating. A client acts like they are morally superior to others for their healthy eating and come across as the food police. They are overly concerned with food and the source of it rigidly controlling what and where food comes from. The term was introduced to the public in 1997 and is not recognized as an eating disorder by the APA and is not yet in the DSM V.
You are NOT what you eat. You can be clean without eating clean.