Eating Disorders

Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa

are serious mental health problems more common in women than in men.

You may be diagnosed with an eating-disorder if your eating habits threaten your health and happiness or threaten the health and happiness of the people who care for you.

The most common eating-disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Both are serious mental health problems and anyone experiencing them needs a great deal of help and understanding

Eating disorders seem to be all about food, but often they are not They are complicated disorders which can be very frightening when you first come across them.

Eating disorders are increasingly common. Although official statistics say that around 2% of the female population are struggling with an eating -disorder, recent studies amongst some groups such as teenage girls reveal much higher rates. An eating -disorder, can affect anyone: men and women, boys and girls.

Whilst some eating- disorders may be obvious (perhaps because someone looks very ill) usually you cannot tell someone has an eating disorder just by looking at them. Sufferers may be at or near normal weight, under weight or over weight.

What are eating disorders?

Who gets eating-disorders? They are around 10 times more common in girls and women. In teenagers, they affect seven girls in every 1000, but only one boy in every 1000.

What causes eating-disorders? We do not know for certain, but many factors could play a part. They include: -

social pressure - Western culture - particularly the media - idealises being thin.

control - losing weight can make us feel good and in control.

puberty - Anorexia reverses some of the physical changes of becoming an adult.

family - saying “no” to food may be the only way you can express your feelings.

depression - binges may start off as a way of coping with unhappiness.

low self-esteem.

genes may play a part.

Binge Eating Disorder,

The way women process information in their brain might put them in a higher risk bracket of developing eating disorders

During this study scientists discovered that certain words used to describe body image were processed as threatening among women's brains and in a rationale way among men's brains.

The Two Most Devastating Eating- Disorders

• Anorexia Starving the body of food
• Bulimia

  Binge eating followed by purging

• Account for the highest number of deaths among psychiatric patients
• Common causes include genetic make-up, stress at school, depression and death in the family
• Both conditions are closely linked to mental/Emotional illness

While scoring the images in terms of how pleasant or unpleasant they were perceived to be, researchers scanned the participant's brains using magnetic resonance. This was done to determine the specific parts in the brain that were stimulated during the experiment.

Unpleasant words were found to illicit a greater emotional response from women. Researchers explained that this was due to the amygdala, a part of the brain that becomes active when a person experiences threatening feelings, which showed signs of stimulation during the experiment.

The men, on the other hand, had the tendency to process the words in a logical manner. Unlike the women, the area of the brain that was stimulated in the men was called the medial prefrontal cortex, which is more often related to rationalizing.

Experts hope to use these findings as a launching point to better understand eating- disorders and what triggers their onset. The findings may also help explain why women are 10 times more inclined than men to develop these disorders.

British Journal of Psychiatry January 2005;186:48-53

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Mental Health

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