Eating Disorders

725,000 People are affected by eating disorders each year in the UK. 1 in 5 females aged 16-24 has an eating disorder.

What are eating disorders?

An eating disorder is when a person has an unhealthy relationship with food, which can take over their life and make them ill. It commonly starts in young people aged 13 to 17 years old. An eating disorder diagnosis is based on eating patterns, which include tests on weight, blood factors, and BMI.

Someone with an eating disorder may find their behaviour towards eating changes. For example, they may worry a lot about their weight and shape, make sudden major changes to their diet, avoid social situations that involve food and/or make themselves vomit after meals. They may experience fainting or feel cold or dizzy, which are all signs of starvation.

There are different types of eating disorders, which are explained below:

Anorexia Nervosa

By not eating enough food or exercising too much, people with this condition keep their weight down. This could cause them to starve their body of essential nutrients, which can make them very ill.

Bulimia Nervosa

By bingeing (going through periods of eating a lot of food quickly) and then getting rid of the calories in unhealthy ways, people with this condition can make themselves sick, use laxatives, exercise too much, or take medication or use diet supplements.

Binge-eating disorder:

This is where some people regularly eat large portions of food all at once until they feel uncomfortably full, and then often feel guilty or upset.

OSFED:

This refers to ‘other specified feeding or eating disorder’ and means they don’t have all the typical symptoms of one of the types above.

 

What are common treatments for eating disorders?

Psychological therapy

Psychological interventions offer opportunities to replace negative eating behaviours with positive ones, thus resulting in regular eating habits. Such consequences mean individuals can also benefit from positive mood alterations that result from positive eating habits.

Psychological therapy can normalize a person’s eating patterns and help them to achieve a healthy weight, exchange unhealthy habits for healthy ones, develop skills to monitor their eating and their moods, and explore healthy ways to cope with stressful situations.

Examples of different types of therapy include:

CBT – Cognitive behavioural therapy
This psychotherapy focuses on behaviours, thoughts, and feelings that relate to their eating disorder. This can help explore healthy behaviours as well as improving a person’s mood.

FBT – Family-based therapy
Having family around the process can help those with an eating disorder get back to healthy eating patterns.

GCBT – Group cognitive behavioural therapy
This therapy requires meeting those who are experiencing an eating disorder and going through therapy together with a psychologist.

Nutrition Education

Nutritional education teaches how nutrition affects the body and explores meal plans, establishes regular eating patterns, and takes steps to avoid dieting or bingeing.

Medication

Antidepressants: Antidepressants can be offered in combination with psychological therapies for some forms of eating disorders.

 

What help and resources are available for people who need support or further advice?

For more information:

Gaining a better understanding of eating disorders can help us recognise whether someone may have an eating disorder. Gaining more information will lead to becoming more informed about treatments available to enable people to get the right support.

  • NHS 
  • NICE 
  • Mind 

Helplines and Chatrooms:

Helplines and Chatrooms give those with eating disorders the chance to talk to people who have experienced or are going through eating disorders. It is a safe place to talk about their disorder, gain a better understanding, and receive advice to help them go through it.

  • Beat Eating Disorders 
  • Eating Disorders Anonymous 
  • National Eating Disorders 
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