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Women's
Health > Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are a very serious compulsion in
which the main problem is a person eats in ways that
heavily affect their physical health. The habits of
individuals who have eating disorders can be
characterized as those whose eating may be too
excessive (compulsive over eating), too little
(restricting) or even those who eat normally but
with episodes of purging or binging.
The most common and well known of the eating
disorders are bulimia nervosa, pica and anorexia
nervosa. There are countless theories as to the
causes and mechanisms leading to eating disorders.
The two most common eating disorders are anorexia
and bulimia both of which have severe consequences
to a person’s health and can even cause death.
Anorexia nervosa is one of the most well known
eating disorders. Anorexia is characterized by
voluntary starvation and exercise stress. Anorexia
is a serious disease that involves psychological and
sociological components.
Bulimia nervosa (commonly referred to as bulimia) is
another eating disorder that is a psychological
condition in which the subject engages in recurrent
binge eating followed by intentially doing one or
more of the following in order to compensate for the
intake of the food and prevent weight gain: fasting,
excessive exercising, vomiting or inappropriate use
of laxatives, enemas, diuretics or other
medications.
Pica is one of the most bizarre eating disorders.
Pica is when a person has an appetite for non foods
such as coal, soil and chalk or an abnormal appetite
for some things that may be considered foods such as
food ingredients like raw potatoes, flour or starch.
The conditions namesake comes from the Latin word
for magpie, which is a bird infamously known to eat
virtually anything. Pica is seen in all ages,
particularly in small children and pregnant women.
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