Eating is controlled by
many factors, including appetite, food availability, family, peer, and
cultural practices, and attempts at voluntary control. Dieting to a body
weight leaner than needed for health is highly promoted by current fashion
trends, sales campaigns for special foods, and in some activities and
professions.
Eating disorders involve serious disturbances in
eating behavior, such as extreme and unhealthy reduction of food intake or
severe overeating, as well as feelings of distress or extreme concern
about body shape or weight. Researchers are investigating how and why
initially voluntary behaviors, such as eating smaller or larger amounts of
food than usual, at some point move beyond control in some people and
develop into an eating disorder. Studies on the basic biology of appetite
control and its alteration by prolonged overeating or starvation have
uncovered enormous complexity, but in the long run have the potential to
lead to new pharmacologic treatments for eating disorders.
Eating
disorders are not due to a failure of will or behavior; rather, they are
real, treatable medical illnesses in which certain maladaptive patterns of
eating take on a life of their own. The main types of eating disorders are
anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. A third type, binge-eating disorder,
has been suggested but has not yet been approved as a formal psychiatric
diagnosis. Eating disorders frequently develop during adolescence or early
adulthood, but some reports indicate their onset can occur during
childhood or later in adulthood.
Eating disorders frequently
co-occur with other psychiatric disorders such as depression, substance
abuse, and anxiety disorders. In addition, people who suffer from eating
disorders can experience a wide range of physical health complications,
including serious heart conditions and kidney failure which may lead to
death. Recognition of eating disorders as real and treatable diseases,
therefore, is critically important.
Females are much more likely
than males to develop an eating disorder. Only an estimated 5 to 15
percent of people with anorexia or bulimia and an estimated 35 percent of
those with binge-eating disorder are
male.
Related Topics:
Anorexia
Nervosa
Bulimia
Nervosa
Binge-Eating
Disorder
Treatment of Eating
Disorders
Source: U.S. National
Institute of Mental Health |
