What is an Eating Disorder?

[sherryinutah]

Most of us understand what anorexia is and we might also understand what it means to be bulimic.

Anorexia: loss of appetite and inability to eat.

Bulimia: Also called binge-purge syndrome, bulimia nervosa  [nur-voh-suh] (Show IPA). Psychiatry. a habitual disturbance in eating behavior mostly affecting young women of normal weight, characterized by frequent episodes of grossly excessive food intake followed by self-induced vomiting to avert weight gain.

The definitions shown above were found on the Dictionary.com site.

Are there other eating disorders?

I think there are.  Personally, I don't want food most of the time.  My tendency is to reach for my drugs; which are, carbs and caffeine.  My objective is to feel energetic and happy.  I'm also fanatical about taking supplements so I won't become nutritionally deficient.

The problem I'm dealing with is that my triglyceride level is too high.   

Do you have normal eating habits?  What do your lab results say about your eating habits and your health?

[madeara]

This is a very informative discussion.  I appreciate your educating us on eating disorders.  Education is key.

[hitch0403]

Ordering take-out and still raiding the fridge!!

[Penwoir]

I think it would be safe to say that anyone who doesn't eat normally, or who doesn't have a normal appetite, possibly has some kind of eating disorder even if it is only mild. I myself eat too much. I have an issue with portion control, I mean I know what I should be eating, but I find it difficult if not impossible to stick to that. I think I am an emotional eater, so when I'm stressed, I eat. When I'm sad, I eat. When I'm happy, I eat. I've often considered hypnotherapy to get his under control.

[countrygirl12]

Carbs are not a drug.  Caffeine is a stimulant.  I don't call intake of those two things and not eating 3 balanced meals an eating disorder.

It seems to be that these days everybody wants to have some sort of addiction, disorder, or disability.

[lvstephanie]

There is also what could be considered the opposite of anorexia... Prader-Willi Syndrome (or PWS) is a genetic disorder characterized by people that have a difficult time stopping when eating, leading to extreme obesity and other health problems caused by excessive eating (eg diabetes, heart disease, etc.) A friend of mine in health services has a client with PWS and has to continually watch the client's eating habits to prevent them from over-eating at meals.

Most of these eating disorders are due to some psychological abnormality, like OP mentioned bulimia affecting mostly young women that have an unhealthy body-image of themselves. Although "emotional eating" isn't technically considered an eating disorder, there is some evidence that it may lead to a more serious eating disorder. "Emotional eating" is considered a maladaptive coping mechanism whereby people falsely alleviate stress by overeating during stressful times; if this overeating then causes the person's self body-image to change (ie the person begins to see that their emotional eating is causing them to look fat (to themselves)), the emotional eating may lead to bulimia as well.

[cathy37]

I'm not aware of any other eating disorders.  Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables are healthy for you.