Added: 12/13/2005 |
Warning Signs Regarding Bulimia NervosaMen and women with bulimia nervosa eat large amounts of food in a short period of time and then they use certain methods to try and purge after eating. Anything not to allow themselves to gain extra weight. There are several symptoms that can be of help while making a definition of bulimia nervosa. It must be noted that a person may suffer from bulimia nervosa even if he/she has only one of the following symptoms.
1. Recurrent episodes of overeating. These cases are characterized by:
- eating huge quantities of food in a relatively short period of time. This amount of food is larger than other people would eat in the same situation during the same period of time.
- a lack of control while eating, for example when a person feels that he/she can't stop eating or doesn't control how much he/she has been eating.
2. Recurrent compensatory behavior for preventing weight gain. It includes purging, fasting, or engaging into strenous exercise after eating. To purge after eating means vomiting or using laxatives, enemas, diuretics (water-pills). Fasting is not eating for at least 24 hours. Strenuous exercising is defined as exercising for more than an hour to burn off the calories of a binge.
3. Binge eating and compensatory behavior that happens at least twice per week for at least every 3 months.
4. Self- esteem and self-evaluation are over-influenced by weight and body shape.
There are two types of bulimia nervosa: the first type is called purging type, when a person has regularly engaged in misuse of different medications or self-induced vomiting.
The second type is non-purging type. During the episodes of bulimia of this type people exercise after eating but they never vomit and never use enemas, laxatives or diuretics.
Some people suffering from bulimia nervosa are engaged in stringent diet plans; they use diet pills and show great concern with their body image. They have a distorted image of their own body and attach too much importance to the way their body looks like. That's why doctors believe that behavior of such people is in direct relation with how they feel about themselves or how they perceive particular events or sequence of events in their lives.
Patterns of overeating can begin in early childhood. Some families overuse food as an instrument that gives them love and comfort. Some parents also put too much attention to how their children look like. Usually these observations are negative. As a result, a child can have wrong ideas of the role of our physical appearance in the life. For such people compensatory behavior is a way for punishing themselves for what they think is their bad behavior (eating too much).
Binge eating and then purging is used to avoid or let out feelings of depression, stress or anger. New researches show that genetic predisposition plays certain role in sensitivity to bulimia nervosa development. Environmental factors become triggers in this case. So, the main cause seems to be a common occurrence of physical or sexual and emotional abuse in direct relation to eating disorders. There is also a connection with clinical depression. Though it's still not known whether bulimia causes depression or depression results in eating disorders.
All in all, bulimia nervosa is a complicated issue. Some people can consider it to be just an obsessive control of the weight but in fact for most men and women suffering from bulimia nervosa there are deeper emotional conflicts that must be resolved.
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