Eating Disorders Anorexia nervosa: American society seems to have an obsession with thinness, particularly for women. Over the last two decades, the United States has seen two eating disorders become more and more common: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. In both disorders, the person takes extreme measures to lose weight. The young women who develop these conditions tend to tend toward perfectionism and be high achievers who try to meet all demands placed on them.

The clinical picture: the person, usually a girl, has a distorted sense of her own self-image and an exaggerated fear of becoming overweight. It often starts with a more moderate diet, but gradually they start rejecting more and more food until they are eating very little and become emaciated, but believe that they look fat. As they eat less and less, they may talk and think about food a lot, carefully planning their miniscule meals. Some people say they like the feeling they get of increased control over their lives.

Medical problems: As weight loss increased, monthly period stop, body temperature lowers, bones can become less dense and heart rate may drop. If the nutritional deficiencies become severe enough, they may die of cardiac arrest, as the singer Karen Carpenter did.

Bulimia nervosa: in this form of the problem, the person cannot resist not only eating, but overeating, or binging on, favored foods. The person then forces herself to regurgitate the food...

They may also overuse laxatives or enemas, take diuretics to shed water weight, or use extreme exercising to burn calories.
Both anorexia and bulimia tend to develop in the ages from young adolescence to young adulthood, and may be triggered by one offhand comment: supposedly Karen Carpenter started on the path to anorexia when one reviewer described her as "pudgy."

Binging can be extreme; some people binge up to 40 times in a week -- more than five times a day, and usually in secret. They may consume more than 3,000 calories in a short period of time without chewing the food much or even tasting it. The binge is followed by feelings of guilt. Compensatory actions follow to get rid of the food, but that leaves the person feeling hungry, and the cycle can repeat itself fairly quickly.

Bulimia nervosa vs. anorexia nervosa: the two are similar in some ways. Both are often triggered by a period of more sensible dieting, by people who fear becoming overweight. Both can involve substance abuse, often drugs intended to support weight loss. Both involve distorted senses of self-appearance. However, those with anorexia show more obsessive tendencies, while bulimics are more interested in pleasing others. Those with bulimia tend toward mood swings and emotionality. Anorexia is more likely to lead to menstrual irregularities, but bulimia can damage the throat, teeth, lungs, and gums.

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