From 27 February through to 5 March, BEAT is working to raise awareness of these serious mental illnesses. They are focusing on the importance of getting people into treatment as quickly as possible and the vital roles that GPs play. Especially around Anorexia where low weight can be dangerous.
Often friends and family are the best people to help someone with eating disorders to go and get their problem diagnosed. Some of the signs that a person has an eating disorder are:
- Is the person obsessed with food?
- Has their eating behaviour changed? – not eating with others for example.
- Do they obsess about a part of their body?
- They find it difficult to concentrate.
- They disappear into the toilet between courses or after the meal.
- They exercise obsessively.
- They have lost significant weight.
It doesn’t matter whether someone is male or female. Many think Anorexia is a young woman’s problem. So men don’t realise they have an eating disorder, and the growing age group is middle-aged women. Eating disorders are mental illnesses and can be a way of coping with feelings or situations that are making you unhappy, angry, depressed, anxious or worried.
Some start as a way of gaining control over a situation. Take Ben, a 22-year-old who only eats Sausage and chips, or sausage sandwiches. His restricted diet started at age 4 when his parents divorced. He didn’t remember why he suddenly refused to eat anything else. His father remembered the circumstances around the event. The fact his mother carried on letting him have such a restricted diet out of guilt. With his health becoming an issue, Ben realised his fussy eating had become a problem for him. He was underweight and wanted to build up muscle. It also stopped him from socialising, as he was too afraid of trying new foods. His mother and stepfather had a very poor diet themselves, consisting mostly of cheap food and he had never had the opportunity to try anything foreign or fancy.
Side effects
The side effects of not having a good diet were constantly catching colds, having constipation and feeling fatigued, as well as being underweight. Long-term problems could be heart disease as he ate mostly processed pork. When we went through a list of foods he did eat, the only additions were chicken and turkey. I listed a variety of foods he might like to add to his diet as they contain vitamins, minerals and Omega 3 and 9. We worked mostly on reducing his anxiety and focusing on what he needed to achieve. Work revealed that a friend could act as a guide to expanding his repertoire. So over 2 months he slowly added small amounts of other fruit and vegetables to his diet. He managed an Indian meal in a restaurant, thanks to his friends eating anything he decided he wasn’t keen on.
Gradually he began to put on the weight he needed and was able to socialise without the anxiety of being so restricted.
Variety of symptoms
So you see, there can be a whole variety of symptoms to eating disorders. From avoiding food, or making yourself sick to reduce the absorption of calories. To limiting yourself to one or two foods, to binge eating when you feel sad or angry.
First get the diagnosis from your GP. Remember that therapies such as nutrition and hypnotherapy can help. T the way you feel about yourself your relationship to food.
Also see: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
For more information go to Eating disorder page