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Eating Disorder Help

Eating disorder help is available at many food addiction treatment centers around the country. Some of these centers are private, expensive and quite elite and others are connected to hospital services. In almost every case, eating disorders are connected to some kind of addiction, whether it is addiction to food, addiction to weight loss or something in between. Eating disorders fall into three main areas: compulsive overeating, bulimia and anorexia. These disorders cause not only severe health issues, but in some cases are fatal. While it is estimated that as many as 40% of Americans of all ages are obese, anorexia and bulimia are typically that battles fought by young women, although a small percentage of men are also included in their statistics.



Food addiction treatment centers know that eating disorder help begins with a discovery of the underlying emotional causes of the illness. In fact, in the cases of anorexia, the disorder is called a mental illness that needs very specific intervention by trained medical professionals that can go to the heart of the problem. Bulimia is also seen as a mental disorder that requires trained intervention to help the patient understand the issue in their lives that might be driving the behavior. With compulsive overeating, certain emotional triggers can bring on such behavior and need to be understood by the patient in order to overcome the addictive behavior. This is why eating disorder help may be expensive and take weeks or months to treat with professional help.



People who eat compulsively are typically affected deeply by their emotions and eat to fill a particular voice that they fell inside. When stresses get to be too much to handle, food is a natural source of pleasure and a diversion from reality. Of course, the overeating leads to immense physical problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol issues, arthritis and stroke. But eating disorder help doesn't come from just telling people with compulsive tendencies to stop eating or to lose weight; in fact, these words often just bring on more negative eating behavior because of guilt. This kind of behavior in which people often hide food in strange places for later consumption takes the intervention of professional counselors in order to have an effect on a person's mind and to break the cycle of addiction.



Typically the young woman who suffers from anorexia will have a very dramatic weight loss in a very short amount of time. She may begin trying to wear baggy clothing to hide her weight loss and will talk obsessively about needing to lose weight or about being too heavy. She may excuse herself and go to the bathroom after meals in order to "purge." She may be almost skeletal in appearance yet complain of being very overweight. Obviously this kind of behavior affects the entire family and often eating disorder help must be extended beyond just the patient to include the entire family. And websites for eating disorders are quick to point out that those people in such a situation may not appear to be underweight and may not even display any of these symptoms.



Bulimics are typically young women who are high achievers and have great ambitions. Bulimics often go on long food binges only to "purge" after the binge in order to avoid the caloric intake. They also may excuse themselves from the meal table after meals to go into the bathroom to vomit. While those suffering from anorexia may actually hide food from their hosts in order not to eat it, bulimics may hide food in order to eat it later. Both anorexia and bulimia sufferers use laxatives, diet pills and even ipecac syrup indiscriminantly with sometimes fatal results. The truth of God and His word can speak peace to the heart of an eating disorder sufferer. "God be merciful unto us, and bless us: and cause his face to shine upon us; that thy way may be known upon the earth, thy saving health among all nations." (Psalm 67: 1, 2) (Italics the writer's)



Strangely, many people with eating disorders have the belief that thinness is the answer to all of life's problems. Even those who eat compulsively and are overweight have that same feeling, which is, in fact, untrue. Eating disorder help must address these underlying belief systems that permeate the thinking of those addicted in some way to food. Treatment centers that are responsible for eating disorder help therapy must fight against the current American and world view that thin is beautiful and anything else is not. Even the more full figured Marilyn Monroe of fifty years ago is viewed as being out of style and non-appealing to media and culture alike in the 21st century.



Help for food addictions ought not to be left until sever symptoms begin their manifestation. Parents of young women must be tuned in early to their daughters' thinking and lifestyle. Making the assumption that everything is fine when some of the early signs of anorexia or bulimia begin to flower should be taken very seriously. Anorexia claims as fatal as many as six percent of its victims. Parents should pay particular attention to their children learning healthy eating habits from the very beginning and not wait until they are in junior high or high school to begin looking at eating disorder help. Homes that are encouraging, non-competitive, positive and involved can help children avoid the later pitfalls of such behavior, but even then, there are no guarantees.

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