Eating Disorders and Substance Abuse

About 20 million women and 10 million men have had an eating disorder at some point in their lives. Celebrities like Lady Gaga, Russell Brand, Alanis Morissette and Elton John all suffered from different eating disorders and have successfully recovered from them. If you have an eating disorder, you might feel ashamed to talk about it or admit that you have one. If they go on for too long, eating disorders can severely damage your body. When combined with substance use, the damage on your body can be even more serious.

Discovery Institute can help treat your eating disorders and substance abuse. We’ll break down eating disorders and how they can be made even worse with a co-occurring disorder.

What is an Eating Disorder?

An eating disorder is a serious condition involving unhealthy eating patterns and behaviors that negatively affect your life, both mentally and physically. People with eating disorders constantly worry about food, body shape, and weight. Although many eating disorders begin in young adulhood, they can affect people of all ages and genders.

Eating disorders affect your digestive system, bones, teeth, and mouth, and they can lead to other serious health complications.

Signs and Symptoms of Eating Disorders

Even though eating disorders each have their own specific sets of symptoms, there are general warning signs that can predict a problem. Someone with an eating disorder may not have all these signs and symptoms at once, and they also might not experience all of them.

Emotional and behavioral symptoms of eating disorders include:

Physical symptoms of eating disorders include:

Types of Eating Disorders

Eating disorders come in several different forms, and symptoms vary on the type of eating disorder you have. Here are four common ones.

Anorexia

Anorexia nervosa, commonly known as anorexia, is an eating disorder in which people view themselves as overweight when in reality, they are dangerously thin. It tends to affect more women than men.

People diagnosed with anorexia usually have the following characteristics:

It isn’t always easy to tell if someone is anorexic by looking at them; they do not need to be underweight to have the disorder. People with anorexia often find it difficult to eat in public and feel a need to control their environment. They also restrict how much they eat or “binge” (eat a large amount of food in a short time) and “purge” (through vomiting or laxatives). Anorexic people may also have obsessive-compulsive symptoms, which include constantly thinking about food, hoarding food and collecting recipes.

When you starve yourself, your body isn’t getting the essential nutrients it needs to function normally. As a result, your body is forced to slow down its processes to save energy. Anorexia can lead to numerous health problems like infertility, bone thinning, brittle nails, and even death.

Bulimia

Bulimia nervosa, commonly known as bulimia, is an eating disorder that consists of episodes of bingeing and purging, which involves force vomiting, excessive exercising or using laxatives to get rid of the food. Bulimia is also more common in women than in men. People with bulimia will become uncomfortably full after each time they’ve eaten, and binge episodes usually consist of foods that they normally avoid. As a result, they try to “purge” themselves of the bad food they’ve eaten to feel better about themselves.

You may have bulimia if you experience the following:

• Recurring episodes of binge eating, which involves eating a large amount of food in a set period with little control
• Recurring episodes of purging, which involves forced vomiting, excessive exercise or the use of laxatives/diuretics
• Fear of gaining weight, even if you are at a normal weight
• Self-worth overly determined by weight

Force-vomiting can inflict damage on your body. It can cause you to have a sore and inflamed throat and worn tooth enamel.

Binge-eating

Binge-eating disorder sounds like bulimia, but it is different in that there is no purging involved.

Pica

People who have pica generally eat things that are not food, such as soil, soap, dirt, chalk, ice, cornstarch or hair. They still ingest regular food, but they have been known to eat these kinds of objects for at least one month.

The TLC TV shows “My Strange Addiction” and “Freaky Eaters” have showcased pica. People on this show have eaten everything from corn starch to toilet paper.

How Do Eating Disorders Develop?

Even though the exact cause of eating disorders is unknown, they are usually caused by psychological trauma or genetics. Many people with eating disorders have low self-esteem.

Below are a few risk factors for eating disorders.

• Having a family member with an eating disorder. You have a higher chance of developing an eating disorder if one of your family members has one.
• Having a history of dieting. People who diet frequently tend to binge-eat.
• Being disappointed in your body image. It’s not uncommon to begin disliking your body, especially as you get older. People with eating disorders tend to have more distorted body images than others.
• Having been teased or bullied. Bullying has become more common in recent years, especially online. 60 percent of people who have eating disorders say being bullied resulted in the development of their eating disorder.
• Weight stigma. We live in a society where skinny models are featured on social media and in magazines. People who want to look like these models have a high chance of developing an eating disorder.