All about health and treatment

There are statistics that show that up to 500,000 people a year die due to eating disorders. This is something that can affect our child, our family and any person, you must know the causes and sings so it can be avoided or prevented on time before it get very severe.

The causes of eating disorders could be many, it is more common to see it in young girls, but a growing number of men are also affected and adults too. The causes can be mental or physical, so lets get a closer look at it.

Physical Causes

Although experts say that the real cause is not known there are some things that seem to trigger this condition. It could be a biological problem or heredity of genetics from a parent. Its also known that an imbalance of serotonin in the brain could be a cause of it.

Mental Causes

The psychological causes can be many, it could be a trauma that created a negative self body image and then the eating disorder. Low self esteem, problems in a relationship, perfectionism, sexual trauma those are causes also. Negative remarks on the body image of a teenager can have a huge impact on her emotions and mental health.

If a person in school or at a social event makes a negative remark of a teenager, like saying you look fat, could trigger a trauma that will not go away and thus she will engage in eating disorders in order to acquire her desired body and be accepted by people. This kind of problem is not uncommon, adolescents are looking for a way to fit in society, have friends and a relationship, if they experience negative remarks of her self or body image the impact could be dramatic.

Media

One more important point to cover is the impact of media, although we can not say that media, tv, magazines, newspapers, movies are directly related to the cause of eating disorders, they create a huge influence in teens and society, they say what are the women that look good and what is accepted. So for many adolescents being like a celebrity or skinny as the models is the only way to look good and have a positive self image.

Those are some of the most common causes, there could be many more but we need to take a close look at this, educate our child and avoid falling in this negative behaviors that hurt the body and mind. source

Eating Disorders are an outward expression of emotional turmoil or deep unhappiness. Sufferers concentrate on food and eating as a way to avoid looking at their problems and to exert control over their own body, when they may otherwise feel powerless in the world. Although anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are probably the best-known expressions of this condition, there are many kinds of eating disorders, some more extreme than others. Compulsive eating, compulsive dieting, binge eating, comfort eating, laxative abuse, and faddy eating are all forms of eating disorder.

People with eating disorders do not like food; for them it is an addiction. Anorexics regard it as an enemy to be avoided at all costs. Bulimics choose food that will be easy to regurgitate; binge eaters will eat whatever is in the refrigerator or cupboards, however unappetizing it may be; comfort eaters choose indulgent, easy-to-eat foods - cookies, cakes, candies, white bread, all of which produce short-term contentment by releasing serotonins in the brain.

Such distorted views of food and eating are different in every individual case and often have their roots in family history. Anorexia nervosa, for example; is characteristically associated with adolescent girls who suffer from low self-esteem and who may feel powerless in their relationship with the rest of the family. There are other factors that affect young people with this disorder; it is argued, with some success, that outside pressures have a great effect especially on adolescents who feel under pressure to conform to the current popular notion that “thin is beautiful.”

However, other eating disorders will also respond to an examination of this area; staying fat in a world where thin is considered beautiful may allow you to step out of the arena of courtship, which may be a goal for people who are uncomfortable with sexual relationships. Deciding to be fat may be a form of revenge, especially in a mother-daughter relationship where the mother has been too dominant. Counseling and psychotherapy from a trained practitioner can help these cases, once the reason why the decision to either eat yourself to obesity or to starve yourself into a nonperson have been addressed.

Very few cases have a physical origin, although naturopaths and nutritionists may make a careful analysis of thyroid activity to see if any minor imbalance in the production of thyroxine may be causing excess weight gain or loss. People who eat for comfort may respond to a course of enjoyable exercise to produce serotonin. Once they have done that, a sensible eating regime can be established, and they can address the problem of why they are unhappy from a more rational standpoint. However, once recovery is underway, a naturopath or nutritionist should be consulted to help establish a healthy, enjoyable, and nutritious diet and to prescribe supplements to support recovery and maintain the new status. source