| BULIMIA NERVOSA |
| 1. Binge Eating All of us will binge now and then and that is pretty normal behavior. For instance at Thanksgiving, we all sit down at the dinner table and probably overindulge. Binge eating in bulimia has certain characteristics that make it much different.. A definitely larger amount of food than most people would eat at a similar time and under similar circumstance A binge can be a few to several thousand calories Consumed within any 2 hour period A feeling that one CANNOT STOP or CONTROL one's eating Accompanied by physical or emotional distress 2. Purging What usually happens after an individual feels they have lost control and binged is that they are consumed with fear, guilt and try to undo their behavior. Purging by vomiting, laxatives, water pills or excessive exercise is done in an attempt to get rid of the calories. Attempts to fast or return to dieting is not unusual. It is important to recognize that purging rarely works well for weight loss. Laxatives and diuretics make you loose water not weight. Even vomiting seems to be ineffective after a while. So what is lost? Time, effort, money spent on food , self esteem and life!.Losing precious electrolytes by purging will make you weak, tired, dizzy an can have a terrible effect on your thinking and heart! How sad it is so lose someone in their 20's to a heart attack. 3. Binging and Purging occurs more than 2 x a week for at least 3 months Here is where one gets caught up in repeating behaviors. When your body thinks it is starving, and purging can put you in that state of starvation, you are going to be driven to eat. That is why binging is so often set up by those restrictive diets! After a binge, here comes the fear I have overeaten. Here comes the false solution : purge to rid of the calories! See how you get caught? Of course, we could try to rationalize that we can let ourselves binge because we can always purge and loose the weight. How wrong we are. Most often these cycles of binging and purging are accompanied by feelings of depression and guilt. Individuals become disgusted with themselves and try to keep their behaviors a secret. What once seemed to be a simple answer for weight control has become a nightmare. Soon weight is not controlled by binging, purging and even attempts to diet do not work. That's why bulimia nervosa doesn't work ! But there is hope. 4.Body Image : Self evaluation and self esteem is overly influenced by weight and shape Almost everyone in our culture is over concerned with how we look, what we weigh or how to change the body parts we don't like. In bulimia, there is this intense tie to our self respect to the way our body looks. We can be great in a lot of things, but if our thighs are too big, well then, we are just not good enough. How does this differ from the person suffering from severe anorexia? When they look in the mirror they may not be able to see their thinness or understand how ill they are. In bulimia, the individual may see a more accurate reflection, but will be too critical and displeased. What about weight in bulimia nervosa? Weight can be normal, underweight or overweight. Unlike anorexics who can be easily identified by their low weight, it is more difficult to identify bulimics. Weight can also dramatically shift and large swings might be an indicator that someone in developing an eating disorder. |
| The following information is from the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders |
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