Binge eating disorder is characterized by compulsive overeating in which people consume huge amounts of food while feeling out of control and powerless to stop.The key features of binge eating disorder are:Frequent episodes of uncontrollable binge eatingFeeling extremely distressed or upset during or after bingeingNo regular attempts to “make up” for the binges through vomiting, fasting, or over-exercising.What causes binge eating disorder?No one knows for sure what causes binge eating disorder. As many as half of all people with binge eating disorder are depressed or have been depressed in the past. Whether depression causes binge eating disorder or whether binge eating disorder causes depression is not known.Studies suggest that people with binge eating may have trouble handling some of their emotions. Many people who are binge eaters say that being angry, sad, bored, worried, or stressed can cause them to binge eat.Symptoms of Binge EatingFrequent episodes of eating abnormally large amounts of food. Significantly impaired control over how what and how much is being eaten. Eating large amounts of food even when not physically hungry.Eating normally around others, but gorging when you’re alone Eating continuously throughout the day, with no planned mealtimesWhat are the complications of binge eating disorder?People with binge eating disorder may become obese, which can put people at risk for a variety of health problems, including:Type 2 diabetesHigh blood pressureHigh blood cholesterol levelsGall bladder diseaseHeart diseaseCertain types of cancerTreatment of binge eating disorderWhile there are many things you can do to help yourself stop binge eating, it’s also important to seek professional support and treatment. Health professionals who offer treatment for binge eating disorder include psychiatrists, nutritionists, therapists, and eating disorder and obesity specialists.Eat breakfast. Skipping breakfast often leads to overeating later in the day, so start your day right with a healthy meal. Eating breakfast also jump starts your metabolism in the morning. Studies show that people who eat breakfast are thinner than those who don’t. Avoid temptation. You’re much more likely to overeat if you have junk food, desserts, and unhealthy snacks in the house. Remove the temptation by clearing your fridge and cupboards of your favorite binge foods.Therapy for binge eating disorderCognitive-behavioral therapy – Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on the dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors involved in binge eating. One of the main goals is for you to become more self-aware of how you use food to deal with emotions. Your therapist may ask you to keep a food diary or a journal of your thoughts about eating, weight, and food. Interpersonal psychotherapy – Interpersonal psychotherapy for binge eating disorder focuses on the relationship problems and interpersonal issues that contribute to compulsive eating. Your therapist will also help you improve your communication skills and develop healthier relationships with family members and friends.
Posts Tagged ‘Eating’
Binge Eating Disorder
Monday, March 15th, 2010Battling an Eating Disorder: When Bulimia Becomes a True American Idol Sized Problem
Sunday, March 14th, 2010In a People Magazine article, American Idol contestant, Katherine McPhee disclosed that she has secretly suffered from bulimia for the past five years. It was her success in television’s American Idol competition that inspired her to come forward and get help to recover from her life-threatening eating disorder. Katherine, a vocalist who at her worst point was self-inducing vomiting up to seven times a day, claimed that she realized her bulimic behaviors were “equivalent to taking a sledgehammer to her throat” and brought herself to treatment.
Glamorizing Eating Disorder Illnesses? Or Becoming an Invaluable Role Model?
Some may think when celebrities like Katherine come forward with such problems it only “glamorizes” the illness and encourages dysfunction in impressionable young people. In reality, some impressionable youngsters may respond by engaging in self-destructive experimentation, but for the most part, the responses of people like Katherine McPhee provide invaluable role modeling for fans.
Though statistics show that 1 percent of young females in this country suffer with bulimia, the numbers most likely do not reflect the enormity of the problem, as bulimia is among the most frequently missed diagnoses, and only a minority of people with eating disorders, especially with bulimia nervosa, are treated in mental healthcare. A problem cannot be solved until it is defined. In coming forward as she has, McPhee has displayed the courage and intention to achieve her dreams, to become proactive in making her life as healthy, gratified and fulfilled as it can be. Despite the widely held misconception that “once eating disordered, always eating disordered,” eating disorders are fully curable in 80 percent of cases where recognized early and treated effectively. In her forthright and courageous stand, this American Idol contestant has become a true American idol.
Uncovering the Secrets of Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa: The Most Lethal Mental Health Disorders
The most lethal of all the metal health disorders, bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa are extremely hard to recognize. Highly secretive diseases, they rarely show up in doctors’ offices during physical or functional assessments; even laboratory tests do not show evidence of eating disorders until they are in their most advanced stages. By their nature counterintuitive, eating disorders typically give victims a pseudo-sense of power and control, creating the illusion of feeling and becoming “better than ever.” In actual fact, certain stages of recovery feel more precarious and painful than does the disease itself. Making matters even more confusing, many of the symptoms of these lethal disorders lay somewhere along the continuum of normal human behaviors. Who doesn’t overeat, under-eat or engage in emotional or social eating at times?
Eating disorders, which essentially represent an abuse of food in an effort to resolve emotional problems, transcend a dysfunctional relationship with food to represent the tip of a physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioral and social iceberg, with early signs of clinical eating disorders typically evident in diverse life spheres.
8 signs that parents and families may see at home, around the dinner table, in the family bathroom, or the child’s bedroom:
• Erratic eating, eating too much or too little, too frequently or too seldom.
• Dieting and other restrictive eating behaviors (in some instances vegetarianism or skipping meals) that can result in extreme hunger and gorging, irregular menstrual periods.
• Fear of putting on weight, with an all-encompassing preoccupation with food and eating that can account for as much as 80 percent of an individual’s thoughts
• Hiding food, and feeling shame and guilt after eating it. The refusal to eat in the company of others.
• Depressive moods
• Various forms of purging, including self-induced vomiting, excessive exercising, laxative, diuretic, or Ipecac abuse
• Disappearances into the bathroom during or following meals
• Impulsive, immoderate and out of control behaviors beyond the realm of eating, that might include shop lifting, promiscuity, cutting, engaging in chaotic relationships, abuse of substances such as drugs, alcohol, nicotine, diet pills, etc.
There is nothing passive about eating disorders. Always on the move, they are either getting better or you can be certain they are getting worse. Eating disorder recovery can be a long-term process, requiring input from a diverse team of professionals including physicians, psychotherapists, family therapists, nutritionists, psycho pharmacologists and school counselors. The course of recovery will be as variable, must be as comprehensive, and in many ways will feel as convoluted as the course of disease, typically combining outpatient and inpatient treatment milieus and diverse treatment modes. Victims of eating disorders, as young as age 5 or as old as 60, male or female, individuals alone or living within the context of a supportive or not so supportive family system need help to recognize, accept and conquer these diseases…to become capable of reclaiming their lives, proactively, with steadfast commitment… to fight the good fight for life and life quality.
Eating Disorder in Children
Saturday, March 13th, 2010Eating disorders also called is Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia. Eating disorders is important to recognize that each factor plays a role in predisposing, precipitating, or perpetuating the problem. Anorexia nervosa compulsive eating are the most common among such young children, but there are cases of bulimia being reported. It is usually begins at the age of fourteen or fifteen, with another peak in incidence in eighteen year olds. It is estimated that 40% of nine year olds have already dieted and we are beginning to see four and five year olds expressing the need to diet. It’s a shame that children so young are being robbed of their childhoods. Children raised in a dysfunctional family are at a higher risk for developing an eating disorder. In a home where physical or abuse is taking place, the child may turn to an eating disorder to gain a sense of control. Children may also develop eating disorders as a way of dealing with the many emotions that they feel, especially if they are raised in a home that does not allow feelings to be expressed. Children who are compulsive eaters are usually using food to help them deal with feelings of anger, sadness, hurt, loneliness, abandonment, fear and pain. There are many serious complications of anorexia, including fainting from low blood pressure, electrolyte disorders, being intolerant to cold, constipation, decreased energy, changes in mood, anemia, kidney failure and osteoporosis (brittle bones).
Eating disorders can cause heart and kidney problems and even death. Genetic attributes and it is more common in children who have a first-degree relative with an eating disorder. Children are at a risk for developing an eating disorder if the parents themselves are to preoccupied with appearance and weight. Eating disorder risk factors is purging behaviors (vomiting or using diuretics (water pills) or laxatives to lose weight). Restrictive eating patterns, which can lead to a failure to gain weight or to being underweight and can include skipping meals, fasting, or eliminating entire food groups. Amenorrhea (absence of menstrual cycles) or delayed onset of puberty and menarche. Parents may first suspect a problem when they discover large amounts of food are missing from the pantry or the refrigerator, though it’s hard to imagine one child could have eaten so much. Mothers with eating disorders may have a difficult time feeding their infants and young children and will further effect the child. Often the family environment will be less cohesive, more conflicted, and less supportive. People with bulimia may be anywhere from underweight, to normal weight, to overweight. It is estimated that as much as 3% of college-aged women have bulimia. Other signs found in teens with eating disorders include having dry and brittle hair, losing hair, and having muscle wasting.
Treatment of eating disorders is slow and difficult (and sometimes requires hospitalization) and should be overseen by a mental health. Exercise is also an important part of everyone’s life and we need to help our children become involved in physical activity. Patients with anorexia also require nutritional and medical intervention to make dietary. Do not criticize your own or your child’s weight, shape or size. Different types of therapy can help treat binge eating disorder. For example, family therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy teach people techniques to monitor and change their eating habits and the way they respond to stress. Family therapy includes the whole family in the process of helping the individual. Cognitive-behavioral therapy combines the approach of helping the individual change their self-defeating thoughts with changing their behavior. Counseling also helps patients look at relationships they have with others and helps them work on areas that cause them anxiety. Weight-control programs are helpful for some people affected by binge eating. The medical treatment of bulimia has concentrated on antidepressants , particularly fluoxetine, which has been found to decrease binge eating and vomiting for about two-thirds of bulimic patients.
Eating Disorders and Prozac
Friday, March 12th, 2010Prozac is the most common prescribed medication for eating disorders.
There are many opinions about the treatment of eating disorders with Prozac.
Some people say that Prozac was useful for them to fight their eating disorders. But many people report it didn’t make any difference in how they felt and even created more health problems than they had before taking it.
Why is it that some people get benefits from this medication and some do not? And should Prozac really be a first line medication for eating disorders?
First, let’s look at the reasons why Prozac as an eating disorder treatment could be effective.
Prozac is an antidepressant. And since up to half of eating disorders sufferers have an additional psychological disorder such as depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder, Prozac can help a sufferer by treating these disorders.
Also, Prozac is designed to restore and maintain healthy levels of a brain chemical called serotonin, which controls mood, feelings and appetite. So, by controlling mood, feelings and appetite Prozac makes a sufferer feel better and more in control.
So what is the other side to the use of this drug? Not all people who have an eating disorder suffer from depression or have other emotional problems. So, if people take Prozac just to restore and maintain their serotonin level in their brain they develop resistance to the drug and need higher and higher dose of Prozac as time goes by. Then if they stop the medication or decrease the dose they simply slip back to their old eating habits straight away and can also suffer debilitating withdrawal symptoms.
The question arises: how can we make the use of this medication more effective for more people?
Most conventional health care professionals believe that the most effective approach is an integrated treatment strategy: one that uses a combination of Prozac treatment with active counseling to treat an eating disorder. But any counseling treatment should include active self-help, self-education and family therapy.
The problem is many people although on Prozac, fail to control their eating disorder while on their own after returning from the therapist or the clinic, so slip backwards.
People should not think that they can simply walk into a doctor’s office and be given a pill and that is the end of it; where suddenly the eating disorder disappears overnight.
This is a sure fire remedy for failure.
If you have been prescribed a pill (like Prozac); you should immediately seek out more education and psychological help regarding your disorder. You have to develop good strategies of self-control, self-evaluation and self-presentation. Without mastering all of these strategies you will always slip back to old eating habits despite the help of Prozac.
Self-help and self-education are important as they teach the sufferer to act while on their own at home, as the eating disorder lives with you at home and not in the doctor’s office.
I suggest you start your self-education and self-help by reading books. One of the best books about eating disorder management and treatment is at http://www.mom-please-help.com
In conclusion, it is fair to say that Prozac can be very helpful for some eating disorder sufferers, especially for those who combine it with an active behavioral treatment. But there are many others who will not benefit from it at all: due to individual specifics, wrong consumption or other reasons. So learning more about the disorder and seeking other ways to improve yourself could be the right way to win against your eating disorder.