Eating Disorders – Symptoms, Causes and a Personal Story
Eating disorders are serious conditions that involve sufferers becoming overly focused on their weight, body shape and food. This leads to dangerous eating behaviours that can have serious detrimental effects on the body, mind and ability to function in other areas of life such as work and relationships. Whilst eating disorders often have extreme physical symptoms, they are classed as mental health conditions. Eating disorders are not just about food, but are often a way of coping with stress or difficult emotions. They can help sufferers to feel in control of one area of their life, often at times when other areas may feel out of their control. This blog is the first of two on eating disorders and aims to cover some key signs and symptoms. In parts this is also related to my personal experience with anorexia and orthorexia, which I suffered from at varying levels of severity for around 10 years.