Disordered Eating
Warning Signs & Strategies for Disordered Eating As parents, you are on the front lines with your children, who are being bombarded constantly by peer and media messages that tout the thin ideal. Unless you emigrated as an adult from a culture with more realistic feminine and masculine ideals, you also will have been inundated with messages about what is right, and what is wrong, regarding food, body size and shape. Most women feel some dissatisfaction with their body, and would like to be at a different weight from where they are now. In fact, 80% of women are dissatisfied, and one in two women are currently on a diet. Men too are increasingly demonstrating body image concerns and the numbers of men with disordered eating behaviour are on the rise, with 10% displaying symptoms of an eating disorder. Up to 25% of men are dieting any given day. As parents, you will also know how easy it is to pass on a behaviour to our children – they do as we do, not as we say. As one in every four individuals will experience some form of disordered eating behaviour in their lifetime, and the most common time of onset for eating disorders is in the teen years, it is important, as a parent, to be informed about the causes, signs, and solutions to disordered eating. The average for teenage girls to begin dieting is 14, but the issue can arise as early as infancy. Causes: There is no single cause of disordered eating. There is a strong correlation between incidents of childhood sexual, and physical abuse, and the later onset of disordered eating. But, it may surprise you to know that recent studies show that it is emotional abuse, and/or neglect, that are the strongest childhood precipitators of eating disorders. Also, modeling from parents plays a strong role in body satisfaction, and in our attitude towards food. Media messages and peer influences also have a strong impact on our body satisfaction, and overall self-esteem level. Signs to look for : According to the DSM-IV (the text that medical and psychological practitioners use for diagnosis) there are five recognized types of disordered eating:- Anorexia: Restrictive Type: Characterized by extreme restriction of food intake and typically, dramatic weight loss.
- Anorexia: Binging/Purging Type: Extreme restrictive behaviour with bingeing and purging behaviour (vomiting, use of laxatives, extreme exercise), dramatic weight loss.
- Bulimia: Those with bulimia are often normal weight or perhaps slightly over their natural body weight. The main characteristic of bulimic behaviour is the perpetual cycle of bingeing and purging.
- Binge Eating (Compulsive Eating Behaviour): Characterized by binging, often many times a day and a feeling of being out of control around food; judging themselves as lacking willpower, lazy, and a failure. Most often the individual with compulsive eating behaviour will be higher than their natural weight.
- Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified: Those who don’t fit one of the above categories, and yet struggle with food and weight concerns would fit this category.
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