Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are often a result of emotional or psychological distress and usually take the shape of an obsessive relationship with food, either under eating or over eating. Eating disorders can often be a way of blocking out pain or frustration.

Types of Eating Disorder

Anorexia
Psychological disorder in which sufferers have a distorted view of their own body and weight, leading to deliberate starvation.

Bulimia
Bulimics tend to gorge on food until they are physically sick or even make themselves sick after any meal. Some bulimics may also use laxatives to induce diarrhoea

Binge Eating
This could involve generally having a healthy diet but then binge eating if depressed, anxious or upset.

Who gets eating disorders?

It has been thought for a long time that it is mainly young women who are susceptible to eating disorders, often due to the media’s distorted image of what women should look like. More and more agencies are seeing young gay men with eating disorders which also may be linked to the way the gay press portrays the gay image.

Where can you go for help if you feel this way?

Firstly you cannot be helped if you don’t want to be helped, you have to accept that you have an eating disorder and you want to stop or you want more control over your relationship with food.

You may want to start by talking about your problem with someone you trust, like a family member, friend, teacher, doctor or you may feel safer getting help from a trained counsellor.

You may want to talk to a dietician to get help around what foods are best for you to over- come your disorder.

It is important to remember that eating disorders need to be treated on 2 levels – both with diet and with what’s going on in your head.

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