Thirty million Americans will suffer from an eating disorder in their lifetime. Anyone can be affected by an eating disorder regardless of age, gender, race, body type, or socioeconomic status. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses that requires medical treatment.
There are 5 types of eating disorders:
Anorexia nervosa involves the restriction of calories which can lead to a significantly low body weight.
Bulimia nervosa can involve the same fear and restriction as anorexia, but is also accompanied by a lack of control that leads to binge eating and purging.
People with binge eating disorder eat copious amounts of food in a short amount of time with a sense of lack of control.
Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder is an eating/feeding disturbance where a person is not able to meet their nutritional needs.
Other specified eating or feeding disorder can be a combination of criteria from the previous disorders or do not meet any of the criteria, but still interferes with daily life.
- Anorexia is diagnosed equally among all ethnic groups.
- Every 62 minutes at least one person dies as a direct result from an eating disorder.
- 50% of teenage girls and 30% of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking, vomiting, and taking laxatives to control their weight.
- An estimated 10-15% of people with anorexia or bulimia are male.
- Men are less likely to seek treatment for eating disorders because of the perception that they are “woman’s diseases.”
- Only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders receive treatment.
It is important to realize that a person’s appearance may not always display the physical or emotional symptoms they are experiencing.
Eating disorders can affect a person’s health in many ways and puts a constant strain on the body. Some of these effects include: Vitamin and mineral deficiencies, hormone loss and electrolyte imbalance, constipation, low heart rate and blood pressure, anemia, bone loss, kidney problems, and increased risk for heart attack and organ failure. For more information or guidance on finding support, please visit https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
Linda Altenburger, Senior Nutritionist, SNAP-Ed