Do you know that according to the World Health Organization, there are over 70 million people suffering from an eating disorder? And also did you know that eating disorders can lead to serious health consequences which may even result in death if not properly treated?

To be specific, eating disorders are a range of psychological conditions which causes an individual to develop unhealthy eating habits. It may occur with an obsession towards food, body shape or body weight.

Traditionally, people often think about Bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa when it comes to eating disorders. However, the recent eating disorder is discovered as orthorexic nervosa which prevails in people who obsessively focus on only eating healthy foods. Unfortunately, an individual could experience multiple eating disorders at the same time and if left untreated, it can lead to numerous health issues like heart failure, seizures, malnutrition, electrolyte imbalances and more.

The Most Common Types of Eating disorders

Anorexia Nervosa

This is often defined as the disease of starvation. Individuals with this usually tend to follow a strict diet with very little or sometimes no food. They constantly check on their weight. This simple means people with an intense fear of gaining weight will experience Anorexics Nervosa where they think even the minimal amount of food according to their age and height is dangerous and will lead to gain weight. An individual who weighs less than 85% of his/her normal weight or 15% under is said to be diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa.

Anorexia Nervosa usually develop during young adulthood or adolescence which tends to affect women in comparison to men. Few common symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa include;

• Being underweight compared to other individuals who are of similar height and age.
• Restricting food for no reason.
• Constant and intense fear of gaining weight.
• Constant preference of thinness
• Overly obsessed with body weight or body shape
• Unwillingness to maintain the right or health weight

People with this disease, will often get preoccupied with continues thoughts about food while some may even collect recipes. Some may even face difficulties in eating food on public places.

Anorexia can be further categorized into the restricting type, Binge eating and purging. People diagnosed with restricting type will follow fasting, doing excessive exercise and dieting. Conversely, people with binge eating and purging type may eat very little or large amounts of food. However, after eating they experience issues like vomiting, overly exercising or taking diuretics. Overtime, this may lead to thinning of bones, brittle nails and hair and infertility while severe cases may end up in resulting brain, heart, multi-organ failure or death.

Bulimia nervosa

Similar to Anorexia, Bulimia may develop during early adulthood or adolescence and tends to affect women than men. Individuals diagnosed with Bulimia continues eat unusual large amounts of food during a period of time where they will continue to eat till they are painfully full. During a binge, an individual believes that they cannot control the amount of food that they are consuming.

Some common purging behaviors are fasting, enemas, overly exercising, vomiting, diuretics and laxatives. Symptoms of Bulimia nervosa includes;

• A self-esteem excessively influenced by body weight.
• Lack of control on food.
• Continues episodes of binge eating
• Even with a normal weight, individuals tend to have intense fear of gaining weight.

As evident, symptoms are very similar to Anorexia nervosa. However, people diagnosed with Bulimia will have a considerably normal weight without experiencing underweight. Few side effects of bulimia are sore throat, worn tooth enamel, acid reflux, hormonal disturbances, tooth decay and swollen salivary glands.

So If you are someone experiencing or know somebody who is experiencing one of these symptoms or disorder types, do not hesitate to seek medical attention.