Looking after yourself

As I have touched on before, eating disorders are prevalent in many countries today – particularly in affluent countries – and it is adolescent girls and young women who are most at risk from developing them.  Most women have either experienced one directly (whether temporary or otherwise) or at least know of someone who has.

Eating disorders can be tricky to define.  Anorexia nervosa, bulimia, bingeing, extreme fasting are all eating disorders.  One may share symptoms with another or be a fairly temporary precursor that, in time, might become a deepening of another, different disorder.  Different phases in a sufferer’s life may manifest a different type of eating disorder, making it difficult to treat.  Because controlling food intake becomes the sufferer’s basic expression of personal power, all eating disorders are the result of an imbalance energetically and, often, a distorted perception of the body.

Eating disorders occur when food intake, body image, self-esteem, psychological and emotional problems, peer-group pressure and weight all collide.  This is why you need to wise up about the reality of these disorders and also why it’s vital for everyone to get into a healthy lifestyle and eating plan.

Eating disorders can kill.

Dieting or restricted eating when taken to extremes can bring years of medical and psychological problems not only for the sufferer, but their friends and family as well.  Eating disorders are a serious medical problem and they can require hospital treatment, rehabilitation and long-term counseling for the patient.  The health consequences are vast and extremely serious – memory loss, loss of menstrual cycle leading to infertility, muscle wastage, dehydration, kidney failure, liver malfunction, gastro intestinal bleeding, chronic depression, skin problems, osteoporosis (bone deterioration), neurological complications and heart failure to name just a few – and some of these can be fatal.

I encourage each reader to do his or her own research on these wide and varied symptoms.  Get equipped in knowledge so you can help a friend or family member who may be hiding or not acknowledging their problem.  There are many websites where you can look them up but the list of the physical symptoms at something-fishy is as extensive as it is frightening.  Google “eating disorders symptoms” and check out the many online resources available.

Photographer: Geraldine Mills