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Eating Disorders Eating disorders have become very prevalent in the United States, as well as all over the world. People deal with dieting, exercise, and a slew of other options to try and lose weight, and sometimes it can spiral out of control. Eating disorders are viewed as illnesses that are associated with a change in eating behavior, harsh body image distortion, and a fixation with weight. There are three main types of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder, and since all three of these often times overlap, they all have similar causes and treatment methods. Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that causes people to starve themselves to death through the process of dramatically decreasing caloric intake. This particular eating disorder usually occurs during early to middle adolescence and is a lot more common among women than in men. A common misconception is that anorexia is due to a person’s decrease in appetite, yet the victim’s appetite is normal at first, and only decreases due to prolonged periods of lack of food. Symptoms of anorexia nervosa include significant weight loss, the refusal to preserve a lowest standard body weight, the loss of menstruation, dry skin, a sickly complexion, and a severe fear of gaining weight. Anorexia has many adverse effects on the body such as lowering the victims body temperature, lowering their white blood cell count, causing sever heart problems and brittle, weak bones. Its long term effects are kidney trouble and osteoporosis, and eventually death due to infections or cardiac failure. Bulimia nervosa is usually described as a disorder where a person has two or more episodes of binge eating per week for at least three months. Binge eating is the fast consumption of a large amount of food that can consist of up to five thousand calories. Often times this binge eating is followed by compensatory actions such as purging through premeditated vomiting, the usage of laxatives, or obsessive exercising. Bulimia can appear at any age ranging from early adolescence to the age of forty, but it is more commonly seen as clinically serious during late adolescence. Bulimia is not considered as dangerous to a person’s health as anorexia, but it also has many detrimental effects on the body. Bulimia commonly causes fatigue and general weakness, constipation, bloating, swollen salivary glands, erosion of dental enamel and sore throat due to vomiting, dehydration, a loss of potassium, and tearing of the esophageal lining.
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