Obesity and Eating Disorders

At one time or another, everyone has felt the need to drop a few pounds. Considering all the fat and sugar most processed foods contain, this is far from unusual. Physicians and nutritionists continue to recommend only medically-safe diet plans. A non-prescription product like Phen375 that contains FDA-approved, pharmaceutical-grade ingredients can be of great help in achieving weight loss goals.

There is a distinctive line between safe dieting and eating disorders. Safe dieting is not harmful to one’s health and in fact results in a healthier metabolism, cholesterol levels, and general nutrition. Eating disorders are not dieting; they are true mental health and medical disorders that all too often result in serious health problems and even death. Eating disorders don’t focus on dropping that extra twenty pounds in time for swimsuit season. They are obsessive-compulsive disorders that involve an insidious distortion of body weight. Persons afflicted with eating disorders are never satisfied with their weight loss; there are always thoughts of “if I could lose just five more pounds….” They believe that they must continue to starve themselves to lose more and more weight.

The three types of eating disorders recognized by the American Psychiatric Association and other international health organizations are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. All are life threatening if not treated by trained medical and mental health professionals.

Anorexia nervosa is, literally, starving oneself to death. Anorexics become so obsessed with dieting and weight loss, that they either refuse to eat at all, or will eat only non-nutritional foods like lettuce and egg whites. Persons in end-stage anorexia appear skeletal, with completely emaciated bodies. Yet, when they look at their bodies, they see someone who is overweight. Death from self-starvation comes in the form of irreversible heart damage and/or the shutdown of the liver and kidneys.

Bulimia nervosa involves a cycle of binge eating huge amounts of food, and then forcing oneself to vomit. It also includes the excessive and dangerous use of laxatives and diuretics to lose weight, which, of course, does not work. Years of bulimic binging and purging result in a destruction of the enamel on the teeth due to the acid in vomit, and in tears in the esophagus from vomiting that could cause internal bleeding and death.

Binge eating disorder has only recently become a focus of mental health and medical evaluation and usually occurs among obese people. In this disorder, anorexic or bulimic behavior is unusual. Instead, it involves the consumption of huge amounts of food, always done in private where the individual cannot be seen. The primary cause of death among persons suffering from binge eating disorder is suicide; the despair of the binge eating cycle and failure to lose weight is simply unbearable.

Healthy dieting that helps obese people lose weight is always beneficial and appropriate; eating disorders cross the line from dieting to serious medical and mental health complications that require the intervention of swift medical and mental health clinicians if serious side effects are to be avoided.