Eating disorder is a mental disorder with irregular eating habits with a negative impact on your body. Eating disorder not only means that eating too much or too little, but it also matters that the food is consumed in what order.
Diet, Duration, Density, Digestion, or Disorder are the 5Ds that need to be considered while checking for an eating disorder. Reasons for eating disorder is not so clear however you can gain clarity on the types of eating disorder, their symptoms and medical complications with features. Prevention and treatment are also available for such disorders if you identify it at the right time.
Different Types of Eating Disorders
There are different classifications of eating disorders in medical terms. We have listed a few of the basic terms for your understanding. Let’s check them one-by-one.
1. Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia Nervosa is a life-threatening eating disorder that is mainly developed in women. The symptoms of such disorder start occurring in adolescence or young adulthood. They feel that they are overweight even if they are dangerously underweight. Self-starvation results in excessive weight loss.
Symptoms
- Exhibits confining behavior or splurge eating and purging behaviors.
- Strong fear of weight gain or becoming overweight results in restricted eating patterns.
- Reduced food intake results in inexpressively low body weight as per age, sex, and physical health.
- Regular interference with weight gaining tactics like fasting or heavy exercising.
- Disorder in body weight or shape due to false self-evaluation.
Medical Complications
People with such disorders suffer from depression and showcase social withdrawal symptoms. They feel irritating, lazy and suffer insomnia. Such disorder at times may force you to risk your life just to stay slim as you start compromising the cognitive functioning of your body.
You suffer from low body weight, delayed adulthood, lack of development of body structure and hormonal inequality. Teenage girls also suffer from irregular menstrual periods. People also suffer gastrointestinal difficulties like stomach aches, acid reflux, bloating, and constipation.
You may also experience vital disturbances like hazardously low blood pressure, heart tremors or chest pain due to a weak or missing heart muscle. These symptoms may also result in Bradycardia or Tachycardia (Extremely slow/fast heart rate).
2. Bulimia Nervosa
Bulimia Nervosa is the next popular eating disorder. It’s a serious life-threatening eating disorder wherein the patient splurge eating behavior until vomiting to self-induce the effects. This disorder is developed during adolescence or early adulthood in men.
People frequently tend to eat a large amount of food in less duration. Each time, the patient eats until he is painfully full till his last breath. They just can’t control or stop eating as they don’t have control over their hunger. It is not necessary to have tasty food on the plate, but they can splurge with odd food as well. Purging behaviors include enforced vomiting, fasting, cathartics, enemas, diuretics, and excessive exercise.
Symptoms
- Intake of large amounts of food until a throwback situation.
- Fear of gaining weight despite controlled weight during purging.
- Regular purging behavior to compensate purging behavior and prevent weight gain may include self-induced vomiting, diuretics, misuse of laxatives, fasting or extreme exercising.
- Recurring bulk eating behavior with a lack of control over eating behavior.
- Repeating an eating disorder at least once a week.
Medical Complications
The patient may suffer from a decreased cognitive function that may elevate suicide risk. You feel reduced gag reflexes and difficulty in swallowing at the end of the meal. People generally experience such traumatic disorder once a week while suffering from esophageal tears.
People also suffer gastrointestinal complications such as loss of bowel function, constipation, GI bleeding, gastric rupture, acid reflux, and rectal prolapse. They also suffer from amenorrhea (menstrual irregularity) or Infertility.
Such disorders may also result in dental problems such as cavities, life-threatening tooth sensitivity and enamel loss, or bleeding gums. Their stomach also demonstrates chronic dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.
3. Binge Eating Disorder (BED)
Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is one of the most common disorders in people from the US. Like other disorders, BED also develops in adolescence or early adulthood. This disorder also displays symptoms similar to Anorexia or Bulimia.
People suffering from Binge Eating Disorder (BED) don’t worry about calories or use abolition behaviors such as vomiting or extreme exercising.
Symptoms
- Regular recurring episodes occur once a week.
- Eating alone as you feel embarrassed by the amount of food you eat.
- Eating bulky foods quickly until uncomfortably full. Secretly eating without feeling hungry.
- Eating bulky foods quickly until uncomfortably full. Secretly eating without feeling hungry.
- Possess feelings of distress, shame, disgust, or guilt when recalling eating behavior.
- Feels disgusted, depressed, or guilty once you are done eating.
Medical Complications
Binge eating doesn’t demonstrate inappropriate compensatory behavior like other disorders. People generally suffer impaired health-related issues like weight gain or obesity with high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels or heart disease.
4. Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)
ARFID is a serious eating disorder mainly found in infants under seven years of age. It is common between men and women that may develop in adulthood as well. People experience disturbed eating behavior due to a lack of interest in eating or not developing taste due to smells, colors, textures, or temperatures. People suffer significant weight loss and other medical problems.
Symptoms
- Eating habits refrain you from being social restricts you to eat with others.
- Avoidance or restriction of food intake hampers sufficient calories or nutrients intake.
- Change in behavior results in selective, restrictive, choosy, or perseverant eating.
- Determined failure in meeting appropriate nutritional and energy goals.
- Deficiencies in nutrients are fulfilled by supplements or tube feeding.
Medical Complications
People suffer medical complications like weight loss or faltering growth. They reveal generalized emotional difficulties, as food avoidance emotional disorder. The rest of the medical circumstances revolve around the medical complications as mentioned for Anorexia Nervosa.
5. Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorder (UFED)
There are several other types of eating disorders that can be added to this category. There are other disorders that don’t cause clinically significant distress/impairment of functioning. These disorders do not meet the full criteria of any of the feeding or eating disorder criteria.
One major example of such a disorder is Night Eating Syndrome.
Night Eating Syndrome: People suffering from such syndrome often display recurrent episodes of night eating. Whenever they wake up at midnight, they tend to eat something that consumes excessive food feasting after dinner. People suffering from this disorder, experience significant distress/impairment, and suffer other mental and physical distress.