Facts & Figures

Health blog #1

According to ANAD, The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “At least 30 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder in the U.S; every 62 minutes at least one person dies as a direct result from an eating disorder.” What do you know about eating disorder? General people may think of an eating disorder as a choice, but it actually quite different. Eating disorder is a problematic psychological health behavior. It can be defined as people having extreme disturbance with food. There are actually six types of eating disorder.

First type is Anorexia nervosa, refers to AN. According to Mayo Clinic, this disorder characterized by one has an intense fear of gaining weight and distorted perception of weight; Because patient control extremely on their weight, they use extreme effort to try to keep their weight and shape, people with Anorexia generally has abnormally low weight and they typically deny their starvation. Besides, I want to mention that if a growing child didn’t gain proper weight in his age and height, it may also be considered as Anorexia. Second type is Bulimia nervosa which refers to BN. According to Mayo Clinic, person with BN secretly eats large amounts of food with a loss of control over the eating, and then purge, trying to get rid of the extra calories in an unhealthy way.

The third type is Rumination disorder, persons have this disorder regurgitated and re-chewing food repeatedly. The fourth type is Binge eating disorder, according to National Eating Disorders Association, this disorder is characterized by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food, often very quickly and to the point of discomfort. Generally, people sometime will have the impulse of eating large amount of food, for example, at a holiday meal. But if a person doesn’t control that behavior overtime, one may develop binge eating disorder. So, don’t make that behavior into a regular one. When one feels that he eats too much and always cannot stop eating even when he is not hungry, that person should give self a warning signal. Binge-eating disorder is more common in women than in man. There are also complications, a person may develop obesity,may have poor quality of life, they may also have medical problems that related to their eating disorder, for example, joint problems, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The fifth type is called Pica. People with this disorder eating the food that don’t have nutritional value, for example, dirt or paint. According to the Handbook of Clinical Child Psychology, prevalence rates of pica range from 4-26% among institutionalized populations. People at least had one month of above symptoms in order to be diagnosed to Pica.

 The six type is Avoidant/ restrictive food intake disorder. According to Eating Recovery Center, it characterized by a persistent failure to meet appropriate nutritional needs that leads failure to achieve expected weight gain or faltering growth in a child and so on. If a person has significant nutritional deficiency, the person is having this type of eating disorder. Eating disorders can have serious, life-threatening effects on people but it is treatable health problem. Some types of eating disorder for example, involve having low self-esteem, or perfectionism, sensitive trait or patient had tense relationship, life frustration, family dysfunction, or some growing children have bias on foods, choosy in food that affect their excitability of their feeding center in the brain while BN has inheritance play role in its morbidity and also lack of central neurotransmitter 5-HT and self-concept impairment, so eating disorder involves a combination of psychological and nutritional counseling, along with medical and psychiatric monitoring. 

Eating disorder is not simply a problem that someone eat too much or too less, it is a serious health problem that affect our children’s growth and adult’s life quality that need we pay attention to since it can be life threatening if it is not been treated.

Citations:

Eating Recovery Center. (2016, April 26). EatingRecovery day: Why We Celebrate.

National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders Staff. (2015). Eating Disorder Statistics.

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2018, Feb). Anorexia Nervosa Overview.

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2018, May). Bulimia Nervosa.

National Eating Disorders Association. (2018). Binge Eating Disorder.

Walker, C. E., & Roberts, M. C.(Eds.). (2001). Handbook of Clinic Child Psychology. Hoboken, NJ, US: John Wiley& Sons Inc.

Eating Recovery Center. (2018). Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder Overview.