Eating Disorders

Heyyyyy Guyssss!! It’s National Eating Disorder Awareness Week!! But first, Let’s catch up. How are you all? What have you all been doing?

So, eating disorders are very common around the country and even all around the world. It’s something we all hear about, but we don’t know much about it. People generally think that an eating disorder is when you don’t eat and you’re very skinny.

Let’s start off with the myths of eating disorders:

1. Parent’s are the causes of eating disorders in their children.
2. Eating disorders are a choice.
3. Only white girls get eating disorders
4. People have eating disorders to punish their parents or their loved ones
5. Eating disorders are just an adolescent phase, which will go away on its own.
6. Eating disorders can easily be cured by going to the hospital.
7. People who have eating disorders just want attention.
8. They can get better just by eating a healthy amount of food.
9. You can’t have an eating disorder if you have a normal weight
10. Parents should just let their kids eat how much they want to avoid conflict.\

Source: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/childrens-hospital/adolescent/eating-disorders/myths.aspx

Let’s go onto the types of eating disorders and what they are…

1. Anorexia – I think this is one of the most common ones. Anorexia is when you starve yourself, not eat properly, or exercising way too much in order to keep their weight as low as they possibly can because they have distorted images of their bodies, thinking they’re fat but they’re really underweight.
2. Bulimia – this is one of the less common ones. Bulimia is when you eat a lot of food, but take extreme actions to stop gaining weight. They would make themselves vomit, exercise way too much, or use laxatives to make them poo it out. Bulimia is not just an eating disorder, but also a mental health issue!
3. Binge-Eating Disorder – this isn’t very common either. Binge-eating, as you can tell by the name, is eating a lot of food to the point they feel sick or uncomfortable. Then after, you tend to feel really guilty or ashamed.

There are quite a lot of others you can find out from this website: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/types/osfed and https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/types/arfid

Source: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/eating-disorders/

Lets get onto the facts of eating disorders:

1. Many people with eating disorders look healthy, but they could be severely sick
2. Family members are not to blame, they’re trying to help the best they can.
3. The diagnoses of eating disorders is a health crisis that disrupts families and relationships
4. Eating disorders are not choices, they are “biologically influenced” illnesses.
5. Eating disorders can affect anyone, regardless of race, gender etc.
6. Eating disorders increases the risk of suicide and medical complications.
7. Genes and the environment play a significant role in eating disorders, not just society.
8. Eating disorders can be cure, it’s not for life.
9. Between 1.25 million and 3.4 million people in the UK are affected by eating disorders.
10. Around 25% of people in the UK that has eating disorders are male.

Sources : https://www.verywellmind.com/eating-disorder-myths-and-truths-1138395 and https://www.priorygroup.com/eating-disorders/eating-disorder-statistics

Ok so what can you do to help?

Beat is a great organisation that educates and helps people with eating disorders: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/support-services/helplines you should give this a read and pass it onto anyone who needs help!

Here are some tips to support someone with eating disorders: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/supporting-someone/supporting-somebody

Just know, at the end of the day, everything will be ok.

Thank you for reading,

Good Luck,

Lots of Love

-Vivian