Eating disorder - English.pdf

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About this leaflet
We hope that this leaflet will be helpful if:
• you feel that your eating or dieting may be a problem
• you think you might have anorexia or bulimia
• other people worry that you have lost too much weight
• you have a friend or relative, son or daughter, who is having a problem of this
sort.
It does not deal with the problems of being overweight.
What is an eating disorder?
We all have different eating habits. There are a large number of “eating styles” which can
allow us to stay healthy. However, there are some which are driven by an intense fear of
becoming fat and which actually damage our health. These are called “eating disorders”
and involve:
• eating too much
• eating too little
• using harmful ways to get rid of calories.
This leaflet deals with two eating disorders – Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa .
It describes the two disorders separately:
• the symptoms of anorexia and bulimia are often mixed – some people say that
they have “bulimarexia”
• the pattern of symptoms can change over time – you may start with anorexic
symptoms, but later develop the symptoms of bulimia.
Who gets eating disorders?
Girls and women are 10 times more likely than boys and men to suffer from anorexia or
bulimia. However, eating disorders do seem to be getting more common in boys and
men. They occur more often in people who have been overweight as children.
Anorexia Nervosa
What are the signs?
You find that you:
• worry more and more about your weight
• eat less and less
• exercise more and more, to burn off calories
• can’t stop losing weight, even when you are well below a safe weight for your
age and height
• smoke more or chew gum to keep your weight down height
• lose interest in sex
• In girls or women – monthly menstrual periods become irregular or stop.
• In men or boys – erections and wet dreams stop, testicles shrink.
When does it start?
Usually in the teenage years. It affects around:
• 1 fifteen-year-old girl in every 150
• 1 fifteen-year-old boy in every 1000.
It can also start in childhood or in later life.
What happens?
• You take in very few calories every day. You eat “healthily” – fruit, vegetables
and salads – but they don’t give your body enough energy.
• You may also exercise, use slimming pills, or smoke more to keep your weight
down.
• You don’t want to eat yourself, but you buy food and cook for other people.
• You still get as hungry as ever, in fact you can’t stop thinking about food.
• You become more afraid of putting on weight, and more determined to keep your
weight well below normal.
• Your fa mily may be the first to notice your thinness and weight loss.
• You may find yourself lying to other people about the amount you are eating and
how much weight you are losing.
• You may also develop some of the symptoms of bulimia. Unlike someone with
Bulimia Nervosa, your weight may continue to be very low.
Bulimia Nervosa
What are the signs?
You find that you:
• worry more and more about your weight
• binge eat (see page 6)
• make yourself vomit and/or use laxatives to get rid of calories
• have irregular mens trual periods
• feel tired
• feel guilty
• stay a normal weight, in spite of your efforts to diet.
When does it start?
Bulimia Nervosa often starts in the mid-teens. However, people don’t usually seek help
for it until their early to mid-twenties because they are able to hide it, even though it
affects their work and social life. People most often seek help when their life changes –
the start of a new relationship or having to live with other people for the first time.
About 4 out of every 100 women suffers
from bulimia at some time in their lives, rather fewer men.
Bingeing
You raid the fridge or go out and buy lots of fattening foods that you would normally
avoid. You then go back to your room, or home, and eat it all, quickly, in secret. You
might get through packets of biscuits, several boxes of chocolates and a number of cakes
in just a couple of hours. You may even take someone else’s food, or shoplift, to satisfy
the urge to binge.
Afterwards you feel stuffed and bloated – and probably guilty and depressed. You try to
get rid of the food you have eaten by making yourself sick, or by purging with laxatives.
It is very uncomfortable and tiring, but you find yourself trapped in a routine of binge
eating, and vomiting and/or purging.
Binge Eating Disorder
This is a pattern of behaviour that has recently been recognised. It involves dieting and
binge eating, but not vomiting. It is distressing, but much less harmful than bulimia.
Sufferers are more likely to become overweight.
How can anorexia and bulimia
affect you?
If you aren’t getting enough calories, you may:
Psychological Symptoms
• Sleep badly.
• Find it difficult to concentrate or think clearly about anything other than food or
calories.
• Feel depressed.
• Lose interest in other people.
• Become obsessive about food and eating (and sometimes other things such as
washing, cleaning or tidiness).
Physical Symptoms
• Find it harder to eat because your stomach has shrunk.
• Feel tired, weak and cold as your body’s metabolism slows down.
• Become constipated.
• Not grow to your full height.
• Get brittle bones which break easily.
• Be unable to get pregnant.
• Damage your liver, particularly if you drink alcohol.
• In extreme cases, you may die. Anorexia Nervosa has the highest death rate of
any psychological disorder.
If you vomit, you may:
• lose the enamel on your teeth (it is dissolved by the stomach acid in your vomit)
• get a puffy face (the salivary glands in your cheeks swell up)
• notice your heart beating irregularly – palpitations (vomiting disturbs the balance
of salts in your blood)
• feel weak
• feel tired all the time
• damage your kidneys
• have epileptic fits
• be unable to get pregnant.
If you use laxatives regularly, you may:
• have persistent stomach pain
• get swollen fingers
• find that you can’t go to the toilet any more without using laxatives (using
laxatives all the time can damage the muscles in your bowel)
• have huge weight swings. You lose lots of fluid when you purge, but take it all in
again when you drink water afterwards (no calories are lost using laxatives).
What causes eating disorders?
There is no simple answer, but these ideas have all been suggested as explanations:
Social pressure
Our social surroundings powerfully influence our behaviour. Societies which don’t value
thinness have fewer eating disorders. Places where thinness is valued, such as ballet
schools, have more eating disorders. ‘Thin is beautiful’ in Western culture. Television,
newspapers and magazines show pictures of idealised, artificially slim people. So, at
some time or other, most of us try to diet. Some of us diet too much, and slip into
anorexia.
Lack of an “off” switch
Most of us can only diet so much before our
body tells us that it is time to start eating again. Some people with anorexia may not have
this same body “switch” and can keep their body weight dangerously low for a long time.
Control
It can be very satisfying to diet. Most of us know the feeling of achievement when the
scales tell us that we have lost a couple of pounds. It is good to feel that we can control
ourselves in a clear, visible way. It may be that your weight is the only part of your life
over which you feel you do have any control.
Puberty
Anorexia can reverse some of the physical changes of becoming an adult – pubic and
facial hair in men, breasts and menstrual periods in women. This may help to put off the
demands of getting older, particularly sexual ones.
Family
Eating is an important part of our lives with other people. Accepting food gives pleasure
and refusing it will often upset someone. This is particularly true within families. Saying
“no” to food may be the only way you can express your feelings, or have any say in
family affairs.
Depression
Most of us have eaten for comfort when we have been upset, or even just bored. People
with bulimia are often depressed, and it may be that binges start off as a way of coping
with feelings of unhappiness. Unfortunately, vomiting and using laxatives can leave you
feeling just as bad.
Low self-esteem
People with anorexia and bulimia often don’t think muc h of themselves, and compare
themselves unfavourably to other people. Losing weight can be a way of trying to get a
sense of respect and self-worth.
Emotional distress
We all react differently when bad things happen, or when our lives change. Anorexia and
bulimia have been related to:
• life difficulties
• sexual abuse
• physical illness
• upsetting events – a death or the break-up of a relationship
• important events – marriage or leaving home.
The vicious circle
An eating disorder can continue even when the original stress or reason for it has passed.
Once your stomach has shrunk, it can feel uncomfortable and frightening to eat.
Physical causes
Some doctors think that there may be a physical cause that we don’t yet understand.
Is it different for men?
• Eating disorders do seem to have become more common in boys and men.
• Eating disorders are more common in occupations which demand a low body
weight (or low body fat). These include body building, wrestling, dancing,
swimming, and athletics.
• It may be that men are now seeking help for eating disorders rather than keeping
quiet about them.
People with special needs and younger children
A learning difficulty, autism or some other developmental problems can disrupt eating.
For example, some people with autism may take a dislike to the colour or texture of

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