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The Edmonton Journal, Feb 12, 2004
 Carol
Kostynuk MD, FRCP(C)
President and Medical Director,
Eating Disorder Education Organization
February is Eating Disorder Awareness Month.
It comes at a time when many people are trying to lose weight,
and when there is even more advertising from diet and fitness
companies. Some people may begetting carried away. How does
a person recognize they have an eating disorder?
Sometimes people who are truly
overweight get carried away after starting a sensible weight
loss plan. So eating disorders can happen when someone of
any age, gender or size is trying to change their body to
meet their personal goals — which are usually too
thin — and when they will use any method regardless
of the risks.
Most of us think that anorexia nervosa only affects adolescent
girls or movie stars. While body image problems often begin
at puberty, there is a serious problem whenever losing weight
becomes more important than relotionships with family and
friends, school, work or play.
to be diagnosed anorexic, doctors will look for symptoms
related to starvation. The key sign in anorexic thinking
is never believing you are thin enough, regardless of actual
size.
When someone is partially recovered, they might appear to
be "fashionably thin," and may even have regular
menstrual periods again, but the obsession with managing
diet and exercise may still rule their lives.
Since the normal human response to starvation is to binge,
some people who have been dieting develop bulimia nervosa.
While researchers have a very specific definition of a binge,
my patients see it as eating foods that they usually do
not allow themselves to eat. They feel out of control during
the binge, and ashamed afterwards.
Many people try to undo the binge (the extra calories) by
fasting, over-exercising or purging in some way. None of
these activities truly gets rid of all the calories, and
so people who binge and purge gain weight.
You can be bulimic at any size. Those who binge and do not
compensate in anyway gain more weight and may have binge
eating disorder.
People who have some of these problems (starvation or binging
or purging), but not on a regular basis, or less severely,
have Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS). Other
variations such as reverse anorexia, night eating syndrome,
and compulsive dieting are not recognized as official psychiatric
diagnoses and are considered disordered eating.
If you think you have a problem, please get more information
from the Eating Disorder Education Organization (EDEO) at
944-2864 or 1-888-404-3336 or www.edeo.org. There are opportunities
to reach support and specialist help.
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