Food addiction: anorexia, bulimia, overeating

Eating disorder - anorexia

Anorexia or anorexic syndrome is a severe mental disorder in which an obsession with one’s body weight appears. A person limits himself to food and has a poor appetite.

If at the initial stage of anorexia the patient artificially restrains the natural feeling of hunger, suppresses appetite, over time, as the disease progresses, the taste buds stop functioning normally, and the craving for food may disappear altogether. Anorexia results in rapid weight loss, which can be fatal.

In addition to weight loss, symptoms of eating disorders include:

• frequent and causeless refusal to eat;
• a special ritual of eating - a person eats only while standing, cuts food into pieces, chews for a long time, does not eat at a common table, then engages in physical labor, etc.;
• conversations come down to talking about diets, dissatisfaction with weight, obesity;
• unstable psychological state - prolonged depression, excessive irritability, tearfulness;
• In girls, the menstrual cycle is disrupted, hair falls out, teeth crumble, libido weakens, episodes of loss of consciousness and fainting are observed.

What is the difference?

Anorexia and bulimia are two common eating disorders. They both lead to poor food intake. In anorexia, poor caloric intake is associated with inadequate nutrition. In bulimia, the patient vomits shortly after eating, without digestion or absorption. There are many similarities as well as differences between anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

Common risk factors for eating disorders

• Researchers have found that genetics accounts for 30-80% of the risk of developing anorexia or bulimia. Scientists are currently working to identify specific genes that may cause these eating disorders.
• Social pressure to be thin contributes to the prevalence of anorexia and bulimia. Since the 1950s, as television images of skinny, beautiful people appeared everywhere, levels of disordered eating have skyrocketed. Sociologists have been tracking the connection between Western media and eating disorders around the world for many years. Today there are campaigns to set more realistic beauty standards in the media. However, in general, the media still puts enormous pressure on us to be subtle and perfect.
• Being a girl: Women and girls are ten times more likely to develop anorexia or bulimia than men. Many experts believe this is because women are under even more pressure to be thin. An increasing number of boys and men may also develop eating disorders. In men, eating disorders are more likely to be accompanied by excessive exercise because they want to look muscular rather than skinny.
• Having a mood disorder: Mood disorders and eating disorders are related. Many people with anorexia or bulimia also have some form of depression or anxiety. Experts suggest that losing weight through anorexia and bulimic behavior restores a sense of control and self-esteem. In other words, weight loss is used to calm underlying mood disorders in some anorexia and bulimia patients.
• Injury
• Being around other people with disordered eating. Living in a home where one or both parents have always been on a diet can contribute to eating disorders in children.

Anorexia nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is characterized by a fear of weight gain and unreasonable and unhealthy restriction of food intake, most often associated with rapid weight loss.

Anorexia

Due to abnormal body image perception, such people are obsessed with a thin figure. The incidence of anorexia nervosa is 1% in women and 0.1% in men. It mainly affects young adult women aged 15 to 20 years. Anorexia and anorexia nervosa are not the same thing. Anorexia nervosa causes loss of appetite, while patients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa do not have loss of appetite but excessively restrict their food intake for fear of gaining weight. It just seems to them that they have no appetite.

Bulimia

Bulimia nervosa is characterized by episodes of quickly eating large amounts of food and getting rid of the food the person consumed through vomiting, laxatives, exercise, stimulants, or diuretics.

Bulimia

This condition was first described and recorded by a British psychiatrist. There are no data on the prevalence of bulimia due to the difficulty of identifying cases of the disease. The research available to date has provided much useful information. Evidence suggests that women from low-income households are at higher risk of bulimia. People who enjoy dancing, gymnastics, ballet and athletics have a higher risk of bulimia.

Stomach cleansing causes harm to the body over time. In addition to the risks associated with calorie restriction and malnutrition that we see with anorexia, we also see additional symptoms that result from purging. Here are the unique physical and emotional symptoms of bulimia:

• Chronic gastric reflux
• Dehydration and electrolyte imbalance
• Irregular heart rhythm
• Inflammation of the esophagus
• Rupture and bleeding of the esophageal wall
• Bleeding from the stomach/esophagus
• Mouth injuries
• Hand scarring and infections from repeated contact with teeth
• Erosion and tooth loss
• Constipation
• Ulcers
• Low self-esteem
• Low blood pressure
• Menstruation disorders
• Dry skin
• Hair loss
• Chronic fatigue

Eating disorder - bulimia

Bulimia is an eating disorder, the development of which often begins with dietary restrictions and attempts to lose weight. Binge eating attacks in bulimia are triggered by physiological and psychological stress.

A bulimic overeats, unconsciously choosing foods and portions. At this moment, the person does not control himself, after which, by artificially provoking the urge to vomit, he releases the contents of the gastrointestinal tract. Moreover, the desire to forcefully empty the stomach is often accompanied by a feeling of uncontrollable self-hatred and guilt.

With bulimia, there are attempts to control eating behavior through the abuse of laxatives and diuretics. In order to lose weight, the patient constantly performs exhausting physical exercises.

Symptoms of bulimia:

• periodic attacks of uncontrolled overeating;
• lack of feeling of satiety;
• dissatisfaction with appearance;
• fear of gaining excess weight;
• a person with an eating disorder prefers to eat alone;
• after eating food, attacks of anger and irritation occur;
• impulsive behavior is observed.

Signs of Anorexia Nervosa

By what signs does a doctor suggest the presence of a mental disorder such as anorexia?

• As a rule, patients deny their problems in relation to their diet.
• There is an opinion of one’s own fatness, excess body weight, dissatisfaction with body shapes. A person may experience a strong fear of getting better, to the point of panic.
• A person uses unusual ways of eating, for example, eating while standing, dividing food into small pieces, and having an extremely selective appetite.
• Anorexia may be accompanied by insomnia or other sleep disorders.
• Depressed mood, depression. Other manifestations of anorexia nervosa include unreasonable anger and resentment experienced by sufferers.
• Anorexia may be accompanied by a strange interest in cooking, collecting recipes, looking at cookbooks, an obsessive passion for cooking and a desire to provide a tasty and full table for relatives and friends, and the author of the culinary act will not participate in the meal himself; interest in different diets; sudden desire to become a vegetarian.
• Changes in social and family life: reluctance to come to public holidays and meals, cessation of communication with loved ones, frequent and long visits to the bathroom or exhausting exercise outside the home, and other signs may indicate anorexia.
• Sometimes, instead of a depressed state, irritability and sadness are observed, replacing euphoria, as well as a decrease in activity.

What common

Bulimia and anorexia are different diseases, but medical research has shown that they can alternate in the same patient. Anorexia and bulimic disorders are more common; in this variant, the symptoms of both diseases are combined. They are united by a common goal - the desire to get closer to the imposed ideal, get rid of excess weight, and take control of your body.

Common features of the diseases can be identified:

• change in food intake;
• weight change;
• deterioration of health;
• frequent mood changes;
• refusal to communicate.

Comparison

As can be seen from the above definitions, both diseases under consideration are forms of eating disorders on a neuropsychic basis. People with bulimia suffer from uncontrollable bouts of hunger, leading to systematic overeating. They either chew throughout the day or attack food spontaneously, sweeping away everything that catches their eye. At the same time, individuals suffering from the disease remain in normal physical shape due to the fact that they induce vomiting after eating, do enemas and abuse laxatives. Of course, bulimia entails certain harm to health, but it can hardly be called critical. Usually it affects weak-willed and weak-willed girls who “seize” the problem instead of solving it. Bulimia can be caused by disorders of the endocrine and nervous systems, as well as stressful situations. In the second case, antidepressants help combat it.

Anorexia

The main difference between bulimia and anorexia is that the latter manifests itself in a persistent refusal to eat. A person simply forbids himself to eat, in panic fear of gaining weight and becoming unattractive in the eyes of others. As a result, he begins to literally “melt before our eyes,” gradually losing up to 50% of his body weight. People suffering from anorexia look very thin and sickly. Despite their constant weakness, they exhaust themselves with intense sports training to become even slimmer. Anorexia most often occurs in young girls with low self-esteem, who have strong self-hypnosis and a will of steel. This disease is characterized by high mortality. About 20% of all patients die. Some of them commit suicide, others die from heart failure caused by exhaustion of the body.

Let's summarize what is the difference between bulimia and anorexia.

How do diseases differ?

Bulimia and anorexia are not interchangeable diseases, despite the fact that they have the same symptoms. Anorexic syndrome (restrictive anorexia) is less treatable and often causes death. Bulimia is easier to correct.

For greater clarity, we present the fundamental differences in the table:

Definitions

Bulimia is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by an irresistible craving for overeating. Experts classify it as one of the types of self-harm. To maintain normal body weight, people suffering from bulimia deliberately induce vomiting after eating, and also often abuse laxatives. Wolf hunger can appear spontaneously in a person, as a result of which he literally pounces on food, consuming it in huge quantities. Attacks are accompanied by pain in the epigastric region and general weakness. Some patients eat continuously throughout the day, while others raid the refrigerator only at night. Bulimia can lead to such serious consequences as acute heart failure, neurasthenia, loss of interest in life, drug or drug addiction. In rare cases, the disease results in death.

Bulimia

Anorexia is a neuropsychiatric eating disorder that is accompanied by refusal to eat in order to lose weight. Girls aged 14 to 24 years are most susceptible to this disease. Along with a great desire to lose weight, they experience an insane fear of obesity. Such people are not able to objectively perceive their physical form. When they look at themselves in the mirror, they see fat people, even if bones show through the skin. Symptoms of anorexia include decreased activity, irritability, and sadness, which are periodically replaced by euphoria. Weight loss leads to cardiac arrhythmia, muscle spasms, and problems with the menstrual cycle. Often people start taking hormonal medications without first consulting a specialist. Such cases are practically untreatable and lead to death.

Causes of anorexia and bulimia

Any disorder arises from a number of antecedent factors.

Psychological disorders arise due to a person's character. The reasons may be: a decrease in quality of life, a change in attitude towards food, a change in taste habits.

Bulimia is caused by the following reasons:

• hereditary predisposition, if someone in the family had or has eating disorders;
• experienced stress, intense emotional shock;
• innate high emotional sensitivity;
• emotional instability, especially in adolescents.

The causes of bulimia can be metabolic disorders, hormonal imbalances, or damage to the center of the brain. Frequent causes are serious psychological problems, regular extremely intense negative emotions that cannot be overcome.

Anorexia, unlike bulimia, is a consequence of an obsession with losing weight. The following diseases can trigger the development of an eating disorder:

• diabetes;
• drug addiction, alcoholism;
• thyrotoxicosis;
• anemia or anemia;
• prolonged depression, presence of phobias, fears;
• severe intoxication of the body.

Psychosomatics of bulimia

Both diagnoses are in the “department” of psychotherapy, so a gastroenterologist and therapist will not save you from such spontaneous indigestion. The health problem prevails much deeper - in the female consciousness. An eating disorder is preceded by a stressful situation in which a woman prefers to eat large amounts of food. When the nervous shock passes, a feeling of guilt for what was eaten arises in the mind, and the patient provokes bouts of vomiting to lose weight. Succumbing to social factors, especially suspicious women can develop bulimia.

Stages of bulimia and anorexia

From the point of view of the patient’s psychological state, there are 3 stages of bulimia:

• Unconscious stage. We are talking about the prerequisites for the development of eating disorders. It manifests itself as nighttime “gorges,” which initially cause a feeling of satisfaction, followed by guilt and reproaches. At this stage, it is difficult to diagnose the disorder; others and the patient do not notice any abnormalities.
• Awareness. Violations become regular. Phobias and fears increase, a depressive state develops, and the feeling of control over eating food disappears. Forced emptying of the stomach becomes a necessity, which is now dictated not only by psychological desire, but also by processes occurring in the body - severe discomfort in the stomach, dizziness, pain.
• Action period. The patient begins to realize that what is happening to him is not the norm. At this point it is important to begin treatment.

Anorexia has stages:

• Dysmorphophobia. In the subconscious of a person, an obsession arises about the imperfection of the body and excess weight. Signs: constant weight monitoring, calorie counting.
• Dysmorphomania. A person carefully hides his refusal to eat, eats alone, increases physical activity, and sleeps little. Food is replaced with energy drinks and coffee. Start taking medications that supposedly reduce appetite, improve metabolism, etc. Anorexics, due to starvation, may eat inedible items - toothpaste, chalk, etc.
• Cachexia. There is a pronounced depletion of the body, usually this stage occurs after 1-2 years of development of the disease. A person feels a sharp aversion to food, and there may be fear of drinking any liquids. Weight is below normal, fat mass is minimal, but the desire to lose weight prevails over rational arguments. The outcome of the cachectic stage is often death.

What is the difference between bulimia and anorexia?

Both diseases are characterized by obvious disturbances of appetite, but according to the prognosis they have significant differences. Many patients with bulimia are obese, so they try to alternate bouts of binge eating with bouts of vomiting. The problem lies at the level of consciousness, when there is a clear confidence that this way is really possible to lose weight. The disease is not fatal, which cannot be said about the second diagnosis. Anorexia differs in symptoms, since the patient consciously came to refuse food, thereby driving herself to severe exhaustion with a potential fatal outcome.