Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are unhealthy behaviors related to food and body weight. They may involve a severe reduction of food intake or excessive overeating, as well as extreme concern about body shape and size. “In 2007, McLean Hospital in Massachusetts published the first national survey of individuals with eating disorders. It found that, overall, 4.5 percent of adults, or over 9 million people, have struggled with eating disorders, such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating at some point in their lives. According to a study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, the majority of these illnesses begin by the age of twenty. Obesity, the condition of having an abnormally high proportion of body fat, is an equally serious problem in the United States. According to the American Obesity Association (AOA), this growing epidemic threatens the health of approximately 60 million Americans—nearly one-third of the adult population”. Eating disorders are taking a terrible toll on far too many individuals(“Eating Disorders”).
There are two common types of eating disorders a person can be diagnosed with: anorexia nervosa and bulimia   nervosa. The better known disorder is anorexia, defined by five criteria:
1. Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height (e.g., …body weight less   than 85% of that expected).
2. Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight.
3. Disturbance in the way in which one’s body weight or shape is experienced,…or denial of seriousness of the current low body weight.
4. Self-evaluation is unduly influenced by body shape and weight.
5. In females, amenorrhea, i.e., the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles. Anorexia nervosa is further subdivided into two types: restricting type, in which the person does not regularly binge or purge (i.e., induce vomiting or   misuse laxatives, diuretics, or enemas), and binge-eating/purging type, in... [continues]

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