Types and Treatments of Eating Disorders Essay

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When people hear the word eating disorder they tend to think of a young middle class white girl. It’s quite rare to hear about older men and women struggling with eating disorders even though it’s fairly common. Unfortunately, eating disorders do not discriminate against race, age, gender, class, or sexual orientation. The only thing that differs is their overall experience and how health professionals chose to treat them. There are three major eating disorders that some people suffer with on a daily basis. The first is anorexia nervosa which is a potential life threatening disorder that affects about 1.1 million women and 340,000 men over the age of eighteen. It is characterized by an intense fear of gaining weight, self starvation, and…show more content…
Now the most common eating disorder in the United States is binge eating disorder (BED). This disorder slightly differs from bulimia. It’s where people binge but without the purging behavior afterwards. A binge can be triggered by stress, dieting, anger, or sadness. Typically, many people binge on junk food such as ice cream and candy. After eating these foods, people often feel a sense of guilt and shame about themselves. It’s because they tend to eat when they are not hungry or are extremely full. In that time food gives them a sense of comfort and eases all the stress. This can lead many adults on the road to heart disease and high cholesterol. Social pressures, biological abnormalities, and depression are heavily linked with binge eating disorder. Generally eating disorders have been defined by women so many times men don’t receive adequate care or go without seeking help. They sometimes even face more stigmatization. Approximately 3.2 million men have suffered from one of the three disorders in their life time. But what’s interesting is that the frequent behaviors such as self induced vomiting, and laxative abuses were found lower in men but the frequency of non-purging behaviors like excessive exercise and supplement use was higher. Men report less drive for thinness which is most likely because their greater concern for muscularity. Some men may compensate by decreasing body fat,
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