Eating Disorders: Helping Friends or Yourself

It's not always clear where the line is between a healthy weight-loss diet and an eating disorder. It's important to be aware of the facts about eating disorders, both to help those around you who might be ill (without you necessarily realising) - and to make sure that you set up healthy, not dangerous, habits in your own eating.

But there's a lot of confusion about eating disorders - people are often unsure what they are, and can even label illnesses such as anorexia nervosa as "faddy eating" or "attention seeking". Here's the facts, and how to get help if you or a friend is suffering.

What is an eating disorder?

An eating disorder isn't just "being overweight", "being underweight" or "eating too much". An eating disorder can be defined as:

A serious disturbance in eating behavior, such as extreme and unhealthy reduction of food intake or severe overeating. Eating disorders are usually accompanied by feelings of extreme concern or distress about body shape or weight.

The two eating disorders that most people have heard of are anorexia nervosa (deliberately restricting calorie intake to very low levels) and bulimia nervosa (binging on large quantities of food and then purging by vomiting or using laxatives).

There are other eating disorders too, including:

• Binge Eating Disorder (like bulimia, but sufferers do not purge)


• Compulsive Overeating (similar to binge eating disorder, involves eating at times when you're not hungry).

Sometimes, a diagnosis of "A-typical Eating Disorder" or "Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS)" will be given if a person's eating habits are clearly disordered, when none of the above descriptions applies.

Don't underestimate how serious eating disorders are. Anorexia can and does kill. Other eating disorders can be very detrimental to the sufferers' physical health. And eating disorders are often linked to depression, even suicide.

How common are eating disorders?

If you, or friends, suffer from an eating disorder, it might be helpful to know that eating disorders are (sadly) not uncommon. Never be ashamed to seek medical advice and help. Eating disorders affect men and women, younger people and older people, and people from many different backgrounds.

Binge Eating Disorder is more common than bulimia and anorexia. A survey by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital found that:

0.9 percent of women and 0.3 percent of men reported having anorexia nervosa at some point in their lives, and that 1.5 percent of women and 0.5 percent of men reported having bulimia nervosa. By contrast, binge eating disorder, a condition in which individuals experience frequent uncontrolled eating binges without purging, afflicts 3.5 percent of women and 2 percent of men at some point in their lives.

How can I help a friend with an eating disorder?

If you suspect a friend or family member has an eating disorder, or if he/she has confided in you, encourage them to go to their doctor. You might feel mixed emotions - perhaps shock (especially if you thought they were healthy and slim), or guilt that you didn't realise sooner - and you might even want to tell them to just "get over it". But an eating disorder is a medical condition and something which people need proper treatment and support to recover from.

In many ways, offering love and support, and encouraging the sufferer to seek professional help, is the best thing that you can do. HelpGuide.org explains that eating disorders stem from emotional causes:

Eating disorders involve extreme disturbances in eating behaviors--following rigid diets, gorging on food in secret, throwing up after meals, obsessively counting calories. But eating disorders are more complicated than just unhealthy dietary habits. At their core, eating disorders involve distorted, self-critical attitudes about weight, food, and body image. It's these negative thoughts and feelings that fuel the damaging behaviors.

Don't get into an argument; eating disorders stem from emotional problems, and trying to put a guilt-trip onto someone will probably make things worse. HelpGuide has some tips on warning signs that someone might have an eating disorder, and how to communicate your concern to them. There are also tips on how to help friends and loved ones with eating disorders on ANRED (Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders).

Be careful with your own dieting

Although eating disorders have a partially genetic basis (some people are more prone to developing them than others), there are a number of factors which put you at greater risk of developing an eating disorder.

One of these is dieting.

Paying close attention to what you eat, counting calories or grams of fat, and focusing on the "nutritional content" of a food rather than on enjoyment of the food itself can all turn you towards unhealthy ways of thinking about food and your eating behaviour.

As ANRED say:

Perhaps the most common trigger of disordered eating is dieting. It is a bit simplistic, but nonetheless true, to say that if there were no dieting, there would be no anorexia nervosa. Neither would there be the bulimia that people create when they diet, make themselves chronically hungry, overeat in response to hunger pangs and cravings, and then, panicky about weight gain, vomit or otherwise purge to get rid of the calories.

Of course, if you're overweight, it's healthy to go on a diet. But make sure your diet involves getting into healthy eating habits - not starving yourself, following dangerous detoxes or eating in a very restricted way.

This is a difficult topic, where emotions run high - both those of sufferers from eating disorders, and those of the people who love them. There are dozens of organisations and medical professional out there who can help you, or your friend, to overcome and recover from an eating disorder: B-eat (Beating Eating Disorders), in particular, has a lot of help and advice.

(Image by echotek77.)