Eating Disorder in the Modern World

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(Image via Need Pix)

Gladys Garcia Vasquez, Writer

According to Health line, eating disorder is an unhealthy eating habit that people have to be thinner. “They might start with an obsession with food, body weight, or body shape” people would look at someone who is skinny and they would look at themselves and see them as an overweight person. People feel like they are overweight because they see someone who might look thinner than they do, and want to be thinner than they do. There’s some eating disorder that can cause death. 

The symptoms for some eating disorders are restriction of food, food binges, vomiting, over-exercising. Which food binges is an uncontrollable eating habit that a person with eating disorders have. And vomiting is after someone eats they go and throw up so they won’t gain those calories. This mostly affects women more than men, and it’s mostly young adult women who develop this disorder.eating disorder 

Eating disorders can be because of a factor. “Experts believe that eating disorders may be caused by a variety of factors.” One of the variety of factors is genetics. For example, if a twin develops an eating disorder the other twin has a 50% of developing one too. Another variety of factor is personality traits, it’s a higher risk to develop eating disorders, because it means that they have to be thin. The last variety of factors is cultural, in some cultures they are required to be thin. 

“Anorexia nervosa is likely the most well-known eating disorder.”(eating disorder ) Having anorexia can make someone think they look overweight but in reality they can be underweight. That makes them stop eating, and restrict their calories. The symptoms are the fear of gaining weight, eating patterns, and avoiding gaining weight. “Many people with anorexia are often preoccupied with constant thoughts about food, and some may obsessively collect recipes or hoard food.” They also control how much they eat, especially in public. They would do everything to be thin like dieting, fasting, and exercising a lot more than what they are supposed to do. Anorexia can affect the heart, brain, and multiple organs, and can cause death.

“Bulimia nervosa is another well-known eating disorder.” It mostly appears in men than women. Bulimia is when you eat a large amount of food in a specific time period, some stop eating until they are completely full until their stomach hurts. People sometimes cannot stop eating or they can’t control their eating habit. They would eat things that they would normally avoid. “Individuals with bulimia then attempt to purge to compensate for the calories consumed and relieve gut discomfort.”(eating disorder ) The symptoms are eating a large amount of food rapidly even though they are not hungry, lack control. This can cause extreme weight gain, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. 

“Pica is another eating disorder that involves eating things that are not considered food.” Some examples of common things they eat are ice, soap, laundry detergent, dirt, soil, chalk, paper, hair, cloth, wool. Pebbles, cornstarch. This can appear in any human like men, women, and children but it’s mostly observed in children, pregnant women, and with mental disabilities. This causes poisoning, infection, and nutritional deficiencies, Pica is a fatal disease.

“Rumination disorder is another newly recognized eating disorder.” This is when someone already chews their food and swallows and they re-chew it and they either spit it out or re-swallow it. This can develop in infancy, childhood, and adulthood, it develops during 3-12 months of age, but it does go away by itself. 

“Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is a new name for an old disorder.” Before it was called “feeding disorder of infancy and early childhood” and it was diagnosed to children under 7 years old. But it can also develop in adults and is equally common with men and women. “Individuals with this disorder experience disturbed eating either due to a lack of interest in eating or distaste for certain smells, tastes, colors, textures, or temperatures.” In conclusion, all eating disorders are bad there’re some that can be treatable but there are some that can’t. (treatable disorder)  Each of these disorders are different in their own way and some are more dangerous than the other ones. Just make sure that you stay healthy.