Bulimia and Anorexia

Bulimia and Anorexia

Introduction

Eating disorders are devastating behavioral diseases caused by a complex interaction of factors, which may include emotional and personality, family pressure, a possible genetic or biological susceptibility and living in a culture in which there is an overabundance of food and an obsession with thinness. Anorexia and bulimia are health problems that manifest as eating disorders and that, sometimes, if not treated properly, they can endanger the lives of people who suffer.

Definitions

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by a significant loss of body weight normally produced by the voluntary decision to lose weight. This thinning is achieved by eliminating or reducing food consumption, especially the "fattening" and quite often by vomiting, misuse of laxatives, excessive exercise and consumption of anorectics.

Bulimia is similar to anorexia. For bulimia, the sufferer is given great binge eating (overeating) and then tries to make up with drastic measures, such as induced vomiting or excessive exercise to prevent weight gain.

Etiology

Its cause is unknown, but social factors seem important. Although there are many cultural factors that can trigger anorexia and bulimia, it is likely that part of the population that have a physical predisposition to suffer from these disorders, regardless of the pressure they can exert the environment. Thus there are general factors that are associated with a trigger or certain biological vulnerability, which precipitates the development of the disease.

Obesity

Death or illness of a loved one

Separation from parents

Away from home

Academic failure

Accidents

Traumatic events

Characteristics

People with anorexia feel real fear of becoming fat and have a distorted picture of the size and shape of your body. This is why we cannot maintain a normal body weight. Many adolescents with anorexia restrict food intake by dieting, fasting or excessive exercise. Just eat, and how little they eat becomes an obsession. Other people with anorexia resort to binging and purging: eat large amounts of food and then try to get rid of the calories by inducing vomiting, taking laxatives, doing physical exercise in excess, or a combination of these.

People with bulimia eat large amounts of food at once (usually junk food) and they usually do it secretly.

Often eat foods that are not cooked or still frozen, or take away food. They often feel they cannot stop eating and only do it when they are too full to continue eating. Most people with bulimia then resort to vomiting, laxative or excessive exercise. While anorexia and bulimia are very similar, people with anorexia are usually very thin and usually have a underweight.

Trends

Due to new trends and fashions, the attitudes of young people and teenagers have been influenced or modified to the point of generating diseases like anorexia and bulimia, a disease largely been prompted by the significant social changes to which we are subjected such as: the hype, the new models, social desirability. In short, a whole series of causes that make every day hundreds of young and not so young, fall prey to this disease.

Number of deaths

Anorexia usually begins in adolescence and rarely occurs after ...