Eating disorders can involve eating too little or too much, and/or becoming obsessed with body weight and body shape. Normally, someone with an eating disorder will exhibit an unhealthy relationship with food, their body and themselves to the point where it has taken over their life and made them ill. You might be reading this as a person who suffers from an eating disorder or may know someone close to you who suffers from one. Whatever your situation, discover more about some of the main...
Are you constantly faced with nutritional and health advice from the media about what you should and should not be eating? In today's society, we are all inundated with health choices that are changing our relationship with food. There is media advice about reducing saturated fats, salt and sugar, limiting red meat and increasing fruit and vegetables. Debates are ongoing about whether margarine is better than butter, sweetener better than sugar, skimmed milk better than semi-skimmed. Food...
The term Anorexia Nervosa was first used in1856 to define an illness characterised by self-starvation. To-date, anorexia is shrouded in myth and it may be helpful to dispel some of the more common beliefs and assumptions surrounding the illness. Anorexia is not rooted in vanity, it is not a ‘teenage phase’ or a lifestyle choice. Moreover, perhaps surprisingly, it is not about food. Anorexia is a serious mental health condition, responsible for more loss of life than any other...
Getting through the holiday season without relapse is, in my opinion, easier than the ‘post-holiday blues’. It is vital to be aware of the dip in mood, boredom, isolation, loneliness, disappointment and many other emotions that will also come up during the celebrations but will also be very prevalent afterwards. I have worked for over 15 years with addictions and eating disorders and it is always after an event that a person is more vulnerable to relapse and I have seen it. It is...
Eating is one of our innate survival drives that initiates appetite, resulting in the intake of food. Like breathing and reproduction, these drives are hardwired into every human being. Most of us think about food daily – what we’ll cook for dinner, what we need to shop for, dining out etc. This is normal. It is considered typical at times of stress that we may eat less, or have no appetite. i.e. loss of a loved one or a traumatic event can induce a suppressed appetite. This is...
It is Eating Disorders Awareness Week from 27th February to 5th March 2017, and there is still stigma attached to those who suffer with an eating disorder. There is an undercurrent of ‘they brought it on themselves’ or, especially for those suffering obesity ‘they are greedy and lazy’. In this article, I want to highlight how our relationship with food is not totally of our own making. There is a genetic element to eating disorders, whether it is related to the amount...
What is self-harm? It is an intentional act of inflicting harm to oneself. The self-harming behaviour we are most familiar with is cutting. This involves cutting the superficial or deeper layers of the skin, typically on the arms or legs. Cutting is over-represented by social media, and so it has entered in to our language and is now widely spoken about. Consequently, other self-harming behaviours have been overlooked and maintain unheard of, and some are not even recognised as acts of...
According to Beat Eating Disorders, the UK's leading eating disorder charity, eating disorders affect 750,000 people in the UK. If you binge and purge you may find yourself in a situation where you feel stuck; you know that you have issues with your eating and yet you are unsure how to go about getting the help that you might need. It might be that you restrict your eating or it might be that you recognise that you binge food and purge after eating. It might be that you eat too much and are...
An eating disorder, whether anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder, is a coping strategy to manage a range of emotional issues. I will look at the anorexic spectrum of eating disorders although there are common emotional factors throughout the spectrum of eating disorders. We hear anorexia linked to wanting to be thin and the power of the media. But why in that case do we all not succumb to this difficult and exhausting range of conditions? We would all like to be attractive physically but...
Eating problems and disorders are common, so it is helpful to know that among the potentially effective treatments available there is one within the field of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends these specially adapted forms of CBT for bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and mixed states ('eating disorder not otherwise specified' - EDNOS) are first-line for self-help and therapist supported treatments of choice....
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