Eating Disorder Symptoms

How do you know if you or someone you know has eating disorders symptoms? Eating disorders symptoms vary, depending on the type of eating disorder the individual has and how far the eating disorder has advanced. Eating disorders symptoms also vary from one person to another.

Eating Disorder Symptoms For Anorexia

Anorexia eating disorders symptoms may be difficult to recognize. Individuals with anorexia eating disorders symptoms often take extreme measures to avoid eating. They may lie or make excuses for not eating. They may claim to be dieting, say they have become vegetarians or vegans, or say they are fasting for religious reasons. Often they will deny even being hungry.

Because individuals with anorexia eating disorders symptoms avoid eating, they often become abnormally thin - and still talk about feeling fat or bloated. Because they have a distorted image of their body, they often will continue to diet, even when they are severely underweight.

In spite of dieting, people with anorexia eating disorders symptoms are typically preoccupied with food, cooking, nutrition and the number of calories in each meal.

Another sign of anorexia eating disorder symptoms is the tendency to exercise obsessively - well beyond what is needed to maintain good health. Individuals with anorexia eating disorder also weigh themselves frequently. They often restrict not only food, also relationships, social activities and pleasure.

Physical signs of anorexia eating disorders symptoms include thinning hair, dry, flaky skin and cracked or broken nails. Woman with anorexia eating disorders symptoms often stop menstruating.

Eating Disorders Symptoms for Binge Eating

Those with binge eating disorders symptoms typically are overweight or obese. Binge eaters may feel like they have no control over their eating behavior, and may eat in secret because of shame and embarrassment. Bingers may hide food. Excessive amounts of food containers and wrappers are also evidence of bingeing.

Bingers eat when they are not hungry. They eat quickly. Binge eaters eat when they feel anxious, lonely and/or depressed. They eat when they are stressed or confused by emotional challenges, eating or grazing without ever feeling satisfied or until being uncomfortably full.

Binge eaters feel shame and remorse over their behavior. They gain and lose weight often, often experimenting with different diets. Binge eaters obsess about their body image. Excessive exercise may be a sign of someone who is binge eating.

Eating Disorders Symptoms For Bulimia

Bulimia is a condition where sufferers typically purge food they have eaten by self-induced vomiting, use of laxatives or other means. Some do not purge, but compensate for eating by over-exercising or fasting. Purging is not necessarily used to lose weight. It may be used to demonstrate control or for punishment.

A larger percentage of people have bulimia than have anorexia. Approximately 4% of college-aged women are bulimic. About 20% of bulimics are male.

Eating disorders symptoms for bulimia are more difficult to detect than eating disorder symptoms for anorexia. Most bulimics are not underweight and many are overweight, because of binge eating.

Bulimia eating disorders symptoms often result from the same causes as anorexia. Causes may include a traumatic event, genetics and more. Bulimics have low self-esteem. Low self-esteem can result in a distorted image of one's body and a perceived need to lose weight. Some people perceive bulimia as a way to cope with problems when they feel out of control.

Long-term bulimia eating disorders symptoms can include laxative addiction; electrolyte imbalances, which can cause heart failure; ulcers; bowel damage; inflammation and sometimes tearing of the esophagus, and tingling in the hands and feet. Depression is common among individuals with bulimia eating disorder symptoms.

To learn more about Walden Behavioral Care's programs for eating disorder treatment, contact Walden at 781-647-6700 or Info@waldenbehavioralcare.com.