Monday, June 15, 2015

All the eating disorders...there are more than two.

You've probably heard of Anorexia and Bulimia, maybe Binge Eating Disorder. Here's an overview of all the eating disorders that I know about (let me know if I missed any).

Anorexia Nervosa. This is essentially starving yourself, or eating far fewer calories than you burn, to the point of being underweight. People who have this also fear gaining weight or becoming fat and don't have an accurate idea of how their body looks. In some cases the person also binges and/or purges.

Bulimia Nervosa. The person binges (eats a lot of food in one sitting) and then does something compensatory, like throwing up or exercising excessively. This must happen once a week on average for at least 3 months. The person has a body image problem as well.

Binge Eating Disorder (BED). This is where a person compulsively eats more food than they need, like in bulimia, but without the compensatory action afterwards.

Pica. This is an eating disorder where the person eats things that aren't food, like dirt, paper, cotton, etc. Babies eating everything on the floor don't count - you have to be old enough to know better.

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). This is similar to anorexia, except that the person isn't starving themselves in order to be thin, it's because of something about the food. Maybe they hate most textures, maybe they can't stand the taste of almost anything, maybe they are afraid of mealtimes for whatever reason, or fear swallowing.

Rumination Disorder. This is where the person regurgitates or re-chews their food after eating, not because of a physical problem or other eating disorder. This is more common in babies and children than adults.

Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED). The old diagnostic manual, the DSM-IV, had a thing called Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS). The new manual has OSFED and UFED. OSFED has sub-types:
Atypical Anorexia Nervosa: like anorexia but weight is at or above normal range.
Binge Eating Disorder (of low frequency and/or limited duration): like BED but with less frequent binges or hasn't been happening for 3 months.
Bulimia Nervosa (of low frequency and/or limited duration): like bulimia but with less frequent binges or hasn't been happening for 3 months.
Purging Disorder: Like bulimia but without the binges.
Night Eating Syndrome: Frequent night eating that causes distress and isn't caused by other things, like BED or social situations.

Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorder (UFED). Any other eating or feeding disorder causing significant life impairment.

Here are two more specific ones that are still not in the diagnostic manual, and I would guess fall under UFED:

Orthorexia. This is an obsession with healthy or clean eating.

Muscle Dysmorphia (or Bigorexia). It's almost the opposite of anorexia - where in anorexia, the person is quite thin but believes they are too big, someone with muscle dysmorphia is usually fit and muscular but imagines themselves too small and scrawny.

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