Eating Disorder

Eating Disorders are classified as Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge Eating Disorder. Anorexia Nervosa is characterized by restriction of energy intake relative to requirements, leading to a significantly low body weight in the context of age, sex, development trajectory, and physical health. Significantly low weight is defined as a weight that is less than minimally normal or, for children and adolescence, less than minimally expected.

Anorexia Nervosa is also characterized by intense fear of gaining weight or becoming “fat”. Anorexia includes behavior that interferes with weight gain even though they already have a low weight. Anorexia also includes a disturbance in the way that the body weight or shape is experienced, a disturbance in the influence on weight is self-evaluation, and a persistent lack of recognition of the seriousness of body weight. There is the restricting type of anorexia and the binge eating/purging type of anorexia.

For the restricting type, during the last three months, the individual has not participated in binging or purging. Often, the patient with the restricting type of anorexia will utilize dieting, fasting, and excessive exercise to lose weight. Bulimia Nervosa is characterized as recurrent episodes of binge eating (in a discrete period of time, an amount of food that is significantly larger than what most individuals would eat in the same period of time under similar circumstances and a sense of lack of control over the eating episode). There are also recurrent inappropriate compensatory behaviors in order to prevent weight gain such as self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives, diuretics and other medications, fasting, or excessive exercise.

This binging and inappropriate compensatory behaviors both occur at least once a week for 3 months. Binge eating Disorder is a relatively new diagnosis and is characterized by binge eating (eating more than a normal person would under the same circumstances) and the episodes are characterized by eating much more rapid than usual, eating until uncomfortably full, eating large amounts of food when not feeling hungry, eating alone due to embarrassment, and feeling disgust towards self, depressed, or guilty afterward.

Psychotherapy is the most important piece to treatment of eating disorders. Medication management is meant to treat comorbid conditions occurring concurrent to eating disorders.

Medscape, DSM-5