Eating disorders are the area of expertise of the psychiatrist and psychotherapist, but dietary modification is found in many specialties. Cardiologists, endocrinologists, and other doctors also make nutritional recommendations to reduce the risks of disease. A lot depends on our manipulation of diet. Obesity increases every year, and excess body weight is a risk factor for many diseases. Let’s outline the problem points of eating disorders.
Wachi doesn’t take eating disorders too seriously. Every doctor’s recommendation is reflected in his or her patient. Through our actions, we can either modify the patient’s lifestyle to correct their body weight and improve their quality of life, or if we act illiterately, we can provoke a disorder.
Table of Contents
What Is an Eating Disorder
An eating disorder is a behavioral condition characterized by persistent eating disorders and associated anxiety. We need to understand that it is indeed a disease; it has a code in the International Classification of Diseases – f50. This disease can greatly affect the quality of life, it affects both the physical and psychological state, and a person experiences social disadaptation.
It’s the therapist’s job to diagnose the disorder, choose a treatment regimen, and involve allied professionals. He can involve allied specialists – the clinical psychologist, the dietician, and other doctors – to help and correct the condition.
Diagnosis and treatment is based on the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The DSM-4 included more stringent criteria for classifying disorders. This guide is based on the symptomatology that we can get from certain conditions.
The Stigma of Eating Disorders and People Having Them
There is a stigma about people who are overweight and obese. Imagine yourself in the shoes of an overweight patient. The doctor denotes to him that this weight needs to be reduced. On the one hand, the doctor is right, obesity causes many diseases, but on the other hand, depending on the relationship the patient has with the doctor, it can create the illusion of over-stigmatizing the patient.
An overweight person faces bullying in society, this is no secret and turning a blind eye to it isn’t worth it. Everyone has had a classmate or classmate who has been stigmatized, bullied.
Constant pressure is one of the factors that provoke eating disorders, a person is isolated and becomes even more disconnected from society: the extra time doesn’t go out into the street, to the store, to the gym. This leads to a decrease in physical activity, a vicious circle is closed: a person tries to find an outlet in food and at the same time becomes socially withdrawn, reducing his physical activity. Instead of working out, this person chooses to bet on sports at 22Bet, and instead of going to cinemas, he watches all new Netflix releases.
Food is one of the available sources of pleasure. But it is important that food not become its only source. Some social media postings give the impression that getting pleasure from food is a bad thing, although it’s not. When a person focuses unnecessarily on food, it further disconnects him from food. In food he seeks solace of certain emotions and new emotions. When a stressful situation or trigger occurs that provokes him to consume food, the person forms compulsive overeating, bulimia.
How to Identify Patients Who Need Further Evaluation
There is a SCOFF test, which includes 5 questions, the possible answers are only “yes” or “no”. You need to answer them as honestly as possible. To do this, you need to explain to the person why this is an important survey:
- Sick. Does the person vomit when they feel they’ve eaten too much?
- Control. Does the person worry about losing control over how much he or she eats?
- Onestone. Has the person lost more than 6.5 pounds in the last three months?
- Fat. Does the person think he/she is fat when others think he/she is too thin, or of normal weight?
- Food. Can the person say that food dominates his or her life?
If the person gives a positive answer in two of the five questions, we assume that the person has an eating disorder background. We can already subtly and gently convey to him that he should see a related specialist who can make a complete diagnosis.
It’s hard to get across to people that they need to go to a therapist for counseling. There are certain stereotypes in society about therapeutic care. Sometimes people think that if a person goes to a psychiatrist, they will immediately be registered, socially restricted, and isolated. So it’s important to get the message across to the patient that they won’t be put on the register or hospitalized, but that they will be helped to have a healthy relationship with food.
What Types of Eating Disorders Exist
Anorexia Nervosa
These patients have an increased risk of suicide attempts and an increased risk of depression. Anorexia nervosa involves food restriction – a person who is visibly or visibly underweight thinks they are overweight, when in fact they are not. There are two forms of anorexia nervosa: the restrictive and the purging type:
- Restrictive. People lose body weight through strict dietary systems and approaches, through hunger strikes and excessive exercise. If one restricts oneself through excessive exercise, energy expenditure will also be a risk factor.
- Cleansing. This category of patients uses various methods of cleansing: inducing vomiting, cleansing enemas, and so on.
Bulimia
The disorder is characterized by periods of overeating “forbidden” high-calorie foods that alternate with periods of eating “safe” foods. By “safe” foods, this type of person means low-calorie foods. Foods containing more calories are treated as forbidden, dangerous food.
The person has a sense of loss of control over how much he or she eats. A person may even say that it was like a dream. Overeating occurs no more than once a week.
A distinctive feature of bulimia is compensatory behavior. These are measures aimed at preventing weight gain. The person realizes that he has eaten too much food and tries to get rid of this food: periods of hunger, inducing vomiting, using laxatives, fat burners, bouts of exercise.
Compulsive Overeating
A cycle in which a person consumes a large amount of food in a short period of time. Characterized by feelings of loss of control, feelings of worry, and intense guilt for overeating. There is usually no compensatory behavior in this type of disorder, unlike bulimia.
Patients may consume large amounts of food and not feel satiated while overeating. Will consume until they feel discomfort. It is not feelings of hunger and satiety that will inhibit eating, but physiological phenomena that will cause discomfort. A person consumes large amounts of food when he or she does not feel physical signals of hunger.
A person with this disorder eats alone so that his relatives cannot see the amount of food he eats. The family may find hidden food wrappers, candy, and other foods. Self-loathing from overeating is present. Depression may form. Not organic depression, but what the person himself calls depressive behavior – decreased emotional background, apathy, lack of meaning in life after overeating.
