Effects of eating disorders

Eating Disorders can have various effects on the body depending on the disorder, your gender and the severity of the disorder. An eating disorder can have ‘minor’ effects on your body such as stunted growth or fatigue but these are just symptoms of the more serious threats these disorder can cause which include Acid Reflux, Electrolyte Imbalance and often Heart Attacks and Failure. Due to these and numerous other problems that can occur eating disorders are very dangerous to the individual.
 
But eating disorders don’t just affect the biological aspects of your body. They also affect your mind and psyche often in the form of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic attacks and heightened anxiety.
 
There is also a lot of time the sufferer will spend thinking about food and calories, mostly planning there next meals (what to eat, what foods to avoid and calculating calories) or routines for the coming days or even weeks and meticulously sticking to the routine they have set for themselves to follow in order to reach their goal of their ‘ideal’ weight.
 
It doesn’t stop just there though. Sufferers can and will withdraw from social activities more and more as the disorder progresses particularly from events that involve the consumption of food fearing that there disorder can be discovered by others. This will lead to social isolation of the sufferer from their friends and families.
 
One of the most difficult things about eating disorders is that they invade every part of you – your thinking, your feelings, and your body. They can strangle the real you. One of the first tasks is to decide what is you and what is the eating disorder.  The physical effects of an eating disorder lock you into a vicious cycle. This cycle can be difficult to break.

 

1.   Physical Disability
 
Weakness associated with starvation/overeating or salt or hormonal imbalance may make you feel vulnerable and inadequate. You may see this as further evidence of ‘personal weakness’ and diet more. This starts a self-defeating vicious cycle.
2.    Emotional Disturbances
Weight loss and focusing on controlling diets can lead to depression and irritability. You may try to deal with these ‘unacceptable’ aspects of yourself by increasing your disordered behaviours. 
3.    Effects on the Brain
The way your brain works is affected – concentration, attention, memory, learning and problem solving are affected. These effects may cloud your judgement and it may be difficult to have rational thoughts about your illness and other problems in general. 
4.    Effects on your Social Life
Your preoccupation with food limits your ability to socialise. You lose your interest in friendships and general activities. You lose your sense of humour. Friends may become bored and drift away. Unfortunately you will probably be tempted to deal with this by using your eating disorder.
5.    Effect on your Digestive System
You may find that meals are highly distressing. Just the sight of certain foods may lead you into panic due to associating them with massive weight gain. Bloating or feeling full very quickly is partly due to a delay in emptying your stomach if you are restricting your diet. This is because the muscles from your abdominal wall will have been eaten away during starvation and therefore sags.  Overeating and abuse of laxatives can overload your digestive system and make it inefficient and prone to problems
6.    Hormones
You will experience a loss of sex hormones. Your desire for relationships vanishes – this can make your life very simple. However, this can lead to you feeling different to everyone else, a bit of a gooseberry. It may add to your feelings of something being ‘wrong’ with you.
7.    Changes in Body composition
With excessive weight loss you will lose bone, brain and muscle tissue. These losses are invisible to the naked eye but can be seen by special X-rays. It may be difficult to accept that you need to gain weight as your body still seems to be working.  There are similar serrious effects with excessive weight gain and weight fluctuations such as diabetes, heart disease,          high blood pressure and cholesterol and other serious diseases8.    Effects on the mind
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Mood is lowered and you become depressed. The mind becomes preoccupied with food and there is often a strong urge to overeat. The ability and interest in forming and maintaining friendships is decreased and there is a feeling of being isolated from others. Concentration is poor and it is difficult to work to the best of your ability. Even minor problems seem huge and as if they can’t be solved.
 
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