About Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder in which the affected person goes through alternate bouts of binging and purging. The person who is affected is normally affected by this disorder spend much of the time either eating lots of food and then after felling guilty and scared that the food intake will result in the increase in body weight and fat, purges the food from the body. The after effects are that the person feels very low after the sudden high of fatty and high calorie food stuff and retreats within herself till the next food binge.

Factors such as hereditary and family history appear to play a major role in the development of bulimia nervosa. If there is constant talk of body weight and fat and comparisons between people as to how one is very thin while the other gains a lot of weight. Such type of conversation topics can lead a person to depression and to get rid of the unnecessary food stuff, they can purge the stuff from their body and become thin. It is becoming more and more common for high school and college students to develop bulimia.

Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa

There is an evidence of dramatic step-up in the number of people that suffer from bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa in recent years. Teenagers and young adult women are most likely to suffer from these eating disorders. An estimated 1% of teenage girls are detected with bulimia and 3% suffer from anorexia. It has been found that about 90% of the people that suffer from these diseases belong to this category. The ten percent that is left over consists of young men and elderly women.

Anorexia nervosa is a condition related to eating that makes the person starve them self. There are often clear signs that a person suffering from anorexia will exhibit. They will go for significant periods of time without eating anything. They also have an overwhelming fear to become fat and are obsessed with the fact that they see themselves as fat. Anorexics also often engage in very heavy, strenuous exercise.

Anorexics experience dramatic weight loss in very short periods of time. Females with anorexia can suffer from irregular menses. Bones lose important minerals and become frail. The organs in an anorexics body start shrinking and are affected. Another health complication with anorexia is an irregular heartbeat. This is a very serious condition because it can lead to heart attack and possible heart failure. Most individuals that suffer from anorexia are of average, perfectly normal body weight. Most people that suffer from anorexia become very withdrawn and anti-social right before the illness sets in.

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia nervosa is a very common eating disorder. People suffering from bulimia binge and purge in a continuous, harmful cycle. They may eat extreme amounts of food at one time and then they force their bodies to get rid of the food by vomiting, taking excessive amounts of laxatives, or by doing extreme, very strenuous exercise.

Bulimics are obsessed with their body weight and their image. They want to be ?perfect? and want to have the bodies that they see all around them in movies, magazines, and all over in society today. Even if they are a perfectly normal weight, they see themselves as being fat and develop bulimia in an effort to change their self image. Even if they are not overweight and even if they become underweight they still see themselves negatively and will continue to binge and purge.

Bulimia has been linked closely with other psychiatric conditions. Most bulimics suffer from depression. Others have anxiety issues. Some have very low self-esteem and no matter how pretty people tell them they are, they just do not believe it. Bulimia also shares some other signs and symptoms with the other most common eating disorder, anorexia nervosa.

Bulimia Nervosa Causes

There is no known cause of bulimia nervosa. There is a lot speculation about what some of the possible contributing factors are. However, nothing has been proven to cause it. Experts are unable to determine exactly why some people suffer from this disorder. They have found some common links to people with bulimia nervosa though.

Hereditary factors and family history appear to play a role in the development of bulimia nervosa. People that have family members with bulimia are at a higher risk of developing it. However, this is only part of the cause and does not always hold true. There are some individuals that have family members with bulimia and they never develop the condition themselves. At the same time, there can be no family history of the disorder and someone can get bulimia.

Another factor that is believed to play a role in developing bulimia is environmental and cultural issues. In this day and age there are skinny, beautiful people everywhere. Models in magazines and on TV portray a very thin image. Thinness is constantly being forced down our throats. We see it everywhere. People see this as the way to be. They want that so called perfect image strive to get it. This often involves turning to bulimia because the individual does not think that they are thin enough or pretty enough.

Bulimia Nervosa Diagnosis

There are a variety of signs and symptoms that can be used to diagnose bulimia nervosa. A bulimic patient can show some of these signs or maybe all of them depending on the conditions. There are no specific requirements that say a patient needs to have all of the symptoms or that you can?t have other symptoms that are not mentioned here.

One of the classic signs in diagnosing bulimia nervosa is continuous binge eating. Patients may eat extremely large amounts of food. Bulimics can sometimes feel that they have no control over their eating. There are instances of bingeing at least two times a week and has been on for at least three months in order to make a clear diagnosis of bulimia. There are also signs of secretive eating and unexplained food runs. Bulimics tend to binge in secret and try to keep their problem hidden from others.

Bulimia Nervous Disorder

Each year more and more people are getting affected by bulimia nervosa disorder. Mostly women (almost 90% of the cases) are found to be affected by bulimia. The major reason why women are particularly vulnerable to eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa is because of their tendency to go on strict diets to achieve the perfect figure. Studies have given results that such diet plans is the main cause in triggering bulimia.

There are severe consequences to health ? both physical and mental. Increasing awareness of the dangers of bulimia has led many people to seek help. But most bulimics refuse to admit that they have a problem and should go for treatment. Bulimia disorder is an illness is featured by episodes of uncontrolled bingeing or eating and then purging their body of the extra food through vomiting, laxative drugs, or diuretic medications. Individuals with binge eating disorder often eat too much food, do not stop eating unless they feel that they are totally full, got a history of fluctuations in body weight and face more difficulties losing weight and keeping it off as compared to patients suffering from other serious weight issues.

Bulimia Nervosa Effects

Bulimia effects vary from patient to patient and are wide in range. In addition, many bulimia effects are somewhat different as compared to other eating disorders' effects.

Bulimia nervosa generally starts when somebody is told by others that it is a simple way to lose and control the body weight. This disorder can begin at a very young age. Bulimics can be under the impression that they can take anything and in any amount but never gain even one extra pound! The effects are very dangerous and in fact, they may be substantially life-threatening. If someone is labeled with such eating disorder then they are supposed to take very great amounts of high calorie foods hastily and then after that, then just throw it out, take some diuretics, or laxatives to get rid of the food from the intestines.

Bulimia Nervosa facts

Bulimia Nervosa calls for frequent episodes of binge eating, generally accompanied with purging and intense feeling of guilt or embarrassment. The affected person is totally out of control and knows that the behavior is certainly okay!. At such times it's very important that the near and dear ones identify the symptoms and provide support to the affected bulimic persons in their road to recovery.

Bulimia nervosa signs by which one can identify includes the following factors such as bingeing, or eating without any control, purging by strict diet, fast, strenuous exercises, vomiting or taking too much laxatives or diuretics in an order to shed off extra pounds from the body, using the bathroom often after having meals, engrossment with body weight , depression or swigging of mood, irregular menses, developing dental issues, inflamed salivary glands, heartburn and/or bloating, facing personal or family issues with alcohol or drug in any form.

Bulimia Nervosa Information

Bulimia nervosa is a serious disorder to the physical as well as mental faculties and occurs due to constant bouts of binging and purging. Bulimia Nervosa first came into definition by Gerald Russell (1979), a British Psychiatrist. Bulimia nervosa is a very common eating disorder but most of the patients and their family members are not aware of the far reaching consequences of this disease.

There are mainly two types of bulimics which can be defined as purging and non purging ones. Binge eating is done by both groups. But when the time comes for either to get the food out of the body, the purging ones do so with the methods such as forced vomiting, using laxatives etc. The non purging ones, on the other hand, take the route of over exercising or fasting excessively to lose the fat they acquired through the binge eating. Either of these methods is very harmful not only to the physical part but also the mental health of the bulimic and constant care should be taken to prevent the further onset of the disorder.

Bulimia Nervosa ?signs, symptoms and treatment

Bulimia nervosa is featured by very frequent episodes to eat, from two times a week to several times in a day. This is then followed by mad efforts to keep away the probable weight gain. Statistics say that during an average binge, the sufferer may consume anything between 3500-4500 calories in just an hour!

The key features of bulimia nervosa include regular episodes of uncontrolled binge eating; incompatible behavior of preventing the weight gain. Also, the self-regard is severely influenced by body's weight and its look.

There are two types of bulimia, discerned by the techniques patients use to extract the food from their body ? purging and non purging bulimia. In the first type bulimia, the purging bulimia, there is the physical purge the food from the body. In the non- purging type of bulimia, this is quite less and not so common, bulimics try to set the issue by fasting, exercising to excess and many more.