Bách khoa toàn thư - Dinh dưỡng và sức khỏe tốt - Vần E | E eating disorders A class of diseases based on obsessive behavior related to eating anorexia nervosa bulimia nervosa and compulsive overeating. Eating disorders affect people from all socioeconomic classes and ages range from 3 to 90. Although both men and women can develop eating disorders predominantly women are affected. Though factors vary among individuals the cycle of eating disorders seems to be initiated by psychological injury including physical and psychological abuse among family members reduced self-esteem oppression social isolation and nutritional insults including faulty diet abuse of drugs alcohol and medications and food intolerance. The resulting behavioral changes and altered eating can lead to a cycle of altered diet altered appetite and hunger mechanisms worsened by nutritional imbalances leading to further eating changes and compulsive behavior. Anorexia nervosa self-induced starvation out of an intense fear of becoming obese was first described 100 years ago. It now occurs in an estimated 1 percent of American women. Although there is a genetic predisposition social factors play key roles in determining the occurrence of anorexia nervosa. Symptoms include a markedly distorted body image and self-restricted dieting leading to extreme weakness muscle wasting and loss of 25 percent of original body weight and cessation of menstruation. Anorexia nervosa is potentially life-threatening. Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurring episodes of binge eating rapid excessive eating followed by purging. Most bulimics are women. Bulimia was first described in the United States in 1980 and the incidence in America is increasing. It is characterized by frequent attempts to lose weight by severely restricted diets followed by episodes of bingeing followed by deliberate vomiting or abuse of diuretics or laxatives to lose weight. Bulimics generally possess low self-esteem and fear an inability to stop eating. Frequent fluctuations in body weight are .
