Types of Eating Disorders That Are More About Feelings Than Food
Different types of eating disorders affect at least 5% of the general population. They also tend to have high mortality rates due to their extremely harmful consequences arising when left untreated. While eating disorders generally affect women, cases for men and children are also on the rise, making it paramount for the scientific community to make a paradigm shift towards focusing on the steady increase of cases of eating disorders like Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. So, if you are one of these people who are affected and are looking for help, please continue reading the following words.
What are Eating Disorders?
Eating disorders are a type of mental condition where affected individuals use disordered eating habits as a way to cope with their negative or intrusive thought processes. People with eating disorders focus too much on their body, food, or calorie intake, which can lead to dangerous behavior that puts them in situations where they end up undermining their health.
All eating disorders, while vastly different from each other with a few nominal similarities, have one thing in common – the way they affect people, which as mentioned before, is coping through food.
An eating disorder does not discriminate. It’s a serious mental illness that affects people of all ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, and genders. Eating disorders are more about feelings than food. People with eating disorders tend to have an inverse relationship with food as for them it is their way to cope with their feelings or get validation that they are in control. They do this while they do not realize what the purpose of the food they eat is serving them in that converse relationship.
Causes of Eating Disorders
All eating disorders are a by-product of a range of factors due to which they are seen in people. Different types of eating disorders can happen due to a combination of genetics and certain triggers i.e. a strong event that changed your life but their chances increase two-fold if there is an extended family’s history of mental illnesses and the environment that surrounds the affected person is hard on them.
What are the Different Types of Eating Disorders?
The list of all eating disorders can be exhaustive, the most common ones are listed below:
Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia is a type of eating disorder where people suffering from it obsess over their food and weight. Anorexia Nervosa can be classified into two different subtypes: The restrictive subtype and the binge-purge subtype.
Restrictive Subtype
People with the restrictive subtype tend to limit their amount of everyday food intake. As the mental disorder progresses, so do the restrictions on the amount and type of food intake of the affected person.
Binge-purge Subtype
People with the binge-purge subtype tend to do the same, limit the amount of food they take every day but this time with a twist: they also tend to go through limited episodes of binging and purging food, which is evident in their behavior. For example, binging on large amounts of food and then using things like vomiting, laxatives, or diuretics to get rid of the food that was consumed, which usually comes after an episode of restricting food.
This type of eating disorder is characterized by symptoms like:
- Fear of weight gain
- Restrictive eating
- Restrictive drinking
- Emaciated look
- Consecutive weighting
- Body dysmorphia
The consequences and the aftereffects of this eating disorder are quite extreme: Infertility, brittle hair and nails, and thinning bones, which further adds to the mental duress of the affected person. Extremely severe cases can lead to life-threatening consequences
Bulimia Nervosa
This one is similar to the binge-purge subtype of Anorexia Nervosa but has a serious snag to it: there is no restriction on the food intake if you are suffering from Bulimia Nervosa. This means that you will be continuously binging and purging food for a limited period of time. When people with Bulimia Nervosa are bringing food, they feel like they have no control over the episode. The common symptoms of this eating disorder are not dissimilar to Anorexia or OCD in terms of purging:
- Forced vomiting
- High-intensity exercising
- Overuse of laxatives & diuretics
- Fasting
- Irrational use of enemas
Bulimia Nervosa is also associated with certain physiological side effects that are caused by overeating which is caused by mental anxiety and duress, which is present due to the eating disorder.
- Inflamed throat
- Tooth and enamel problems
- Acid reflux
- Dehydration
- Gut irritation
This eating disorder is also known for causing an imbalance in electrolytes in severe cases, which in turn can cause stroke or heart attack making it one of the most dangerous kinds of eating disorders.
Binge-eating disorder (BED):
BED is similar in a sense to Bulimia Nervosa and the binge-purge subtype of Anorexia Nervosa. However, this one has a major component missing from the previous types described. People suffering from BED do not restrict food intake or use purging behavior to get rid of the accumulated calories during binge episodes. In addition to that, people with BED tend to eat more processed food rather than whole foods and as a result, have a risk of developing life-altering or threatening health complications.
Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID):
Most of the hallmark features of this disorder are similar to Anorexia Nervosa, in the sense that people restrict their food intake but the fear of losing weight or body dysmorphia is not present in it. Furthermore, this type of eating disorder has an early onset when compared to others in this list of eating disorders and is most commonly diagnosed in middle childhood. Children with ARFID tend not to reach their full growth potential because of the malnourishment brought on by the condition. When an adult is affected by it, they tend to not have enough calories to maintain basic bodily function.
Symptoms of ARFID:
- Extensive restrictions on the amounts and types of food intake
- No interest in food
- Gastrointestinal issues without any apparent underlying issue
- “Picky eating” that progressively gets worse
- Dramatic weight loss
PICA
Pica is a type of eating disorder that is characterized by sufferers needing to eat something that is not edible and eating it might also be extremely harmful, even if briefly. This can be something like sand, paint, chalk, or even soap to which they sort of have an addiction. But to be specifically diagnosed as a person with PICA, the food intake of non-substances (having no nutritional value!) has to be culturally or religiously significant.
Pica is most commonly found in people who have a serious handicap in daily functioning mental health conditions like:
- Intellectual disabilities
- Schizophrenia
- Autism spectrum disorders
People suffering from Pica are at risk of poisoning, infections, gut injuries, and extreme nutritional deficiencies.
These were the most common types of eating disorders. There are equally dangerous yet less common versions of eating disorders out there. Let’s talk a little bit about them too:
Rumination disorder:
This eating disorder is characterized by the rechewing of already-eaten food. This type of eating disorder is also much more common in babies that are 3 to 12 months old but can also exist in adults. For babies, it is much more dangerous due to fear of malnutrition.
Night-eating Syndrome:
It is when people eat excessively at night, often lying awake due to that, hurting their sleep cycles.
Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED):
OSFED is an umbrella term for different types of eating disorders that don’t fall under the usual groupings of eating disorders. Orthorexia, which we are going to talk about also falls under this category.
Orthorexia:
It is defined by the extreme behavior of eating only healthy food to the point where it starts to disrupt your routine life. People with Orthorexia tend to obsess over “nutritional labels” on food items and make exhaustive lists of food groups or checklists to ensure that they follow a plan that doesn’t include unhealthy food items. They also obsessively follow extremely strict diets like Paleo and follow fitness and health-related groups on social media. This type of eating disorder can lead to malnutrition, extreme weight loss, and even difficulty eating food outside the home, which can also limit their social life.
Learn More: Eating Disorder Assessment : Top Screening Tools
Treatment of Different Types of Eating Disorders
All eating disorders can be treated if the affected person is motivated to recover and find help. Early detection and timely treatment are always a wise decision. Leaving anything from the list of eating disorders above untreated can lead to severe consequences such as suicide or other medical complications.
A person’s support system, which includes their family, friends, or even their therapist, is an important component of the treatment for mental health issues like eating disorders. It complements actual treatments, for example, something like psychotherapy and psychiatric medication management, or a combination of these.
Psychotherapy
A treatment like this one can help affected people get in touch with their inner thought processes, so they can come to terms with negative feelings and then find positive ways to resolve them. Examples of these therapies include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Interpersonal Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. All of these therapies can work very well in treating these eating disorders, as all eating disorders tend to be more related to feelings rather than food.
Medication
The role of a mental health expert does not end with giving therapy, it goes well beyond medication sometimes. Once a prescription has been made, the mental health professional can also ensure that the medicated treatment is progressing properly and that breakthroughs in the treatment are happening. Commonly, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) are prescribed as antidepressants that specifically target the specific neurotransmitter (Serotonin) which is known for regulating mood, feelings, and thoughts, so symptoms of eating disorders can be decreased. SSRIs can be made available through our platform’s psychiatry pain management.
Lifestyle Changes
Making changes in your lifestyle can also greatly contribute to the treatment of all types of eating disorders. Optimal exercise, good sleep, meditation, and having a good social circle that does productive things can all make the difference needed to start recovery from different types of disorders. This combined with the treatments addressed above can lead to swift recovery from eating disorders, in the end also barring severe consequences associated with eating disorders from happening.
Conclusion
We now know that an eating disorder is a type of mental condition where the affected person uses food as a coping mechanism for their negative feelings. The most common types of eating disorders are Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge-eating Disorder, and ARFID. All eating disorders are serious issues and should not be taken lightly. There are different ones but all are treatable if early intervention is done and timely support is provided. Mental health experts at Inland Empire Behavioral Group are highly capable of all types of treatment procedures that can help people suffering from different types of eating disorders in tremendous ways.
