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The 10 Most Dangerous Types Of Eating Disorders

Eating Disorders-The 10 Most Dangerous Types Of Eating Disorders

A serious condition that can lead to many adverse effects to our body, if not treated in time is, Eating disorders

Eating Disorders definition

meaning of eating disorders

“Eating Disorders” are being referred to as disturbed or abnormal eating habits.

A number of conditions can express themselves in these harmful behaviors.

Eating Disorders Etiology

A lot of reasons are responsible for it to occur.

Causes to eating disorders are usually found in an obsession with,

• Bodyweight,
• Body shape or
• Food.

These disorders can often have serious health effects. They can even cause death in some cases.

There are a number of factors that can lead to eating disorders, including:

• Brain biology,
• Personality,
• Cultural ideals and, in some cases,
• Genetics.

Anyone can succumb to eating disorders, no matter their age or gender. Nevertheless, adolescents and young women are especially likely to develop them.

About 13% of young people – up to the age of 20 – may be affected by at least one kind of eating disorder.

Here’s a list of the most harmful eating disorders, as well as the serious consequences that can arise from them.

Eating Disorders Types

1. Eating disorders – Night Eating Syndrome

This disorder is as common among women as among men. It is less well known than others but occurs often enough to merit attention.

Simply put, people with this disorder, eat food during the night. They might hide food – to eat when they are unobserved. They may also be overweight or have once had a substance abuse problem.

Eating Disorders Symptoms

Night eating syndrome can lead to high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Many people diagnosed with this disorder also suffer from depression and a range of sleep disorders. Anxiety also afflicts many of them, which can even exacerbate their night-eating habit.

What is especially interesting is that this disorder often manifests itself in people after they have failed to stick to a diet. These sufferers, in order to lose weight, limit their caloric intake during the day.

Hunger, however, overcomes them at night and compels them to make up for the missing calories.

2. Eating disorders -Nocturnal Sleep Eating Disorder

People with this disorder literally get out of bed during the night and eat – often excessively. One rather unique aspect of this disorder is that most people can’t remember actually getting out of bed and eating.

Even people who do remember their nocturnal activity are unable to prevent it by themselves. This disorder is very similar to sleepwalking – in the sense that it can be very difficult to wake someone who is sleep-eating.

During a sleep-eating event, people’s eating habits can be very different from their normal eating behavior. They may, for example, eat food items that they normally only eat in combination with other foods. Sugar, butter, jam are just a few examples.

When sufferers are sleep-eating, they usually eat foods that are very high in calories – especially sugary foods.

eating disorders symptoms

As a result of the additional calories, these sufferers often gain weight. There are other dangers too. Sleep-eaters might unintentionally eat something non-edible or combine foods in unhealthy ways.

3. Eating disorders -Pregorexia

Some pregnant women act to prevent or regulate their weight – often to prevent gaining too much weight. Pregorexia describes behavior and symptoms during pregnancy that are similar to those exhibited in others suffering from eating disorders.

Pregnant women who are more worried about their weight than about their health, often engage in excessive exercise. Of course, due to their different physiques and physical condition, what is “excessive” for one woman, might not be so for another.

Yet women who typically train to the point of collapse, are engaging in excessive behavior. What can make things even worse, is that this obsession with weight will also affect how a woman eats.

Eating Disorders Symptoms

If she takes in too few calories, she could endanger the health of the unborn child. This can result in insufficient weight at birth, growth retardation, and even serious birth defects.

4. Eating Disorders-Bigorexia Also known as Muscle Dysmorphia

Bigorexia is a variant of body dysmorphic disorder. This occurs in people who think that their body is too small or skinny, insufficiently muscular or lean.

This type of behavior most often occurs in males, but some females also have this disorder. These sufferers find defects in their body or figure – that are not defects at all. They may also inspect their bodies for hours in a mirror, and obsess over some tiny “flaw”.

People with Bigorexia engage in repetitive activities and rituals meant to increase muscle mass. What’s interesting, is that people with this disorder will often hide their sculpted physique under loose clothing, rather than show it off. This is because they believe that anyone would be able to spot the physical flaws that they obsess over.

Eating Disorders Symptoms

Although this disorder involves other behaviors, an obsession with one’s body will often affect a person’s eating habits. In an effort to attain or maintain their figures, sufferers might insist on eating specific foods. These people are typically fickle about what they eat and when, and they obsess about their diet most of the day.

Many of them will get extreme with their diets in order to gain muscle mass or eliminate body fat. They may also turn to steroids. This disorder actually arises from a powerful sense of inadequacy. This lack of self-worth can negatively affect other areas of their lives, including their relationships with others.

5. Eating Disorders-Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder

This is a new name for what was previously known as “selective eating disorder.”

Eating Disorders In Childhood

The diagnosis for this disorder was once made exclusively in children seven years old and younger. Although this disorder usually manifests in children during infancy or early childhood, it can persist into adulthood; and it is equally common in both men and women.

Eating Disorders In Adolescence

Eating Disorders Symptoms

People with this disorder often experience a distaste for certain smells, tastes, colors, textures or temperatures. They may also simply lack interest in eating. Sufferers often lose a significant amount of weight, which can lead to nutritional deficiencies.

Their psychological health might also be negatively affected, and they may lean on nutritional supplements to maintain their health.

6. Eating Disorders-Orthorexia Nervosa

This disorder describes people who are obsessed with eating only pure and healthy foods. Such foods often include organic or health store foods. Sufferers of this disorder are extremely preoccupied with

• What they eat,
• How much they eat, and
• How their food is prepared.

Eating Disorders Symptoms

Their obsession with the ideal diet can reach such an extreme, that should they violate their own dieting rules, they will actually punish themselves. This punishment can take the form of an even stricter diet, or fasting.

This obsession with “healthy” foods is what can make this disorder particularly dangerous. It can actually disable sufferers, taking over their life. This constant preoccupation with food can deprive a life of joy. Everything else – school, work, personal relationships – take a back seat and become unimportant to someone suffering from Orthorexia Nervosa.

Some people even take things so far that they suffer from life-threatening malnourishment.

7. Eating Disorders-Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia Nervosa classifies people suffering from this disorder, either as “purging bulimics” or “non-purging bulimics”.

After ingesting a large amount of food, the former will induce vomiting or use other purging methods in order to rid themselves of the calories; the latter, engage in excessive exercise.

Many factors can lead to bulimia. Among these are,

• An obsession with bodyweight or form,
• A compulsion to eat until it hurts, and a fear of weight gain.

Eating Disorders Binge

Bulimia is much more than “bingeing” and “purging.”

Bulimics often go on restrictive diets between binges, and abuse laxatives and herbal weight loss products. This eating disorder can have terrifying consequences; yet those who suffer from it, typically think that they will get away with their behavior.

Eating Disorders Symptoms

The potential problems associated with bulimia include

• Kidney failure caused by excessive dehydration,
• Addiction to laxatives,
• Digestive problems, and
• Severe tooth decay resulting from the stomach acid contained in vomit.

Others can develop irregular heartbeats and die from heart failure. Females may also miss their periods.

8. Eating Disorders-Anorexia Nervosa

eating disorders and social media

This eating disorder tends to get the most attention from the media because sufferers become shockingly emaciated. A number of famous entertainers, in particular, have suffered from this, and their photos provide the media with sensational stories.

Eating Disorders Symptoms

People suffering from Anorexia, feel compelled to lose as much weight as they can by drastically restricting calories. In some cases, anorexics weigh less than 100 pounds, even though they are on average more than 5 feet tall.

Yet, not every sufferer is obviously underweight. And despite what one often sees in the media, not every one of them is female.

Moreover, their behaviors are not limited to extreme dieting. Some people with anorexia behave much as bulimics do. They may voluntarily purge themselves, as is common for bulimics.

They may also exhibit rather unusual habits. Some, for example, do not like eating in the company of other people. Others are so obsessed with losing weight, that they take diet pills in excessive amounts.

They will even use diuretics to lower their weight, even though the weight loss is merely their own bodily water. Anorexia can lead to health complications that are every bit as grave as those caused by bulimia. These complications include a decrease in white blood cell count – which weakens the immune system and leaves sufferers vulnerable to frequent illness.

Anorexics are also at risk of

• Malnutrition,
• Tooth decay,
• Thyroid problems, and
• Seizures.
• Females often suffer from irregular periods.
• Anorexic behavior can also result in low blood potassium.

This is a particularly dangerous threat to health, as it can lead to serious heart problems.

9. Eating Disorders-Binge Eating Disorder

Eating Disorders Symptoms

Symptoms of this disorder are very similar to anorexia or bulimia. Sufferers commonly eat large quantities of food in a short amount of time. They usually feel helpless to control their consumption when bingeing.

In contrast with the other disorders I’ve mentioned, bingers don’t compensate for their consumption by limiting calories, purging, or exercising excessively. They feel disgusted with themselves after they have binged. Paradoxically, these feelings often cause them to binge again – regardless of whether they feel hungry or not.

Bingers often appear perfectly normal to others because they tend to binge only when alone. This habit, however, can cause a number of very serious health problems, like:

• Heart failure,
• Kidney disease and
• Diabetes.

And of course, many of them become obese, which can also lead to other health problems.

10. Eating Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified

Some people may behave in ways that are typical of a number of other eating disorders, yet not display all the behaviors necessary for making a specific diagnosis.

These individuals, then receive a diagnosis of “Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.” But this diagnosis is not very helpful when it comes to the treatment of eating disorders.

The lack of a more specific diagnosis can leave sufferers feeling somewhat helpless and unsure as to whether they actually have a disorder. This and the fact that many of them look perfectly normal can make it very difficult for them to get effective treatment of eating disorders.

Eating Disorders Conclusion.

Sufferers may have symptoms associated with Anorexia – such as extreme calorie restriction; while at the same time also exhibiting purging behaviors – normally associated with Bulimia. This condition, although rather vague, can pose a serious threat to a person’s health.

The consequences can even be life-threatening. Despite a large number of people who suffer from eating disorders, a stigma is still attached to them. This is unfortunate, as it can lead to misconceptions.

This list, therefore, can be of great help in understanding the most dangerous types – as their consequences are not only physical in nature but emotional as well.

Eating Disorders Treatment

Anyone who suspects that they could have an eating disorder should seek the help of a licensed medical professional as the treatment will depend upon the cause and type of eating disorders.

Friends, this was all about, Eating Disorders-The 10 Most Dangerous Types Of Eating Disorders.

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