It’s the holiday’s folks! Bring on the cookies, pies, cakes and other delectable eats that show up around the house and office during this season. For some it's the most wonderful time of the year, but for the estimated 7 million females living in the US with a eating disorder and 1 million males who are doing the same, the holidays can be a time of true torture.
Eating disorders can be difficult to understand. Food restricting, binge eating and purging, can sound like such unnatural activities to engage in, especially if you have never personally been afflicted with an ED or known someone who has. While you may be day dreaming about your mom’s famous holiday chocolate pie, someone else is going home for the holidays.
As of to date there are four types of classified eating disorders.
1. Anorexia Nervosa
2. Bulimia Nervosa
3. Compulsive over-eating disorder
4. Binge eating disorder
People can suffer from one or a combination of these disorders. Each disorder has its own criteria for diagnoses, as well as possible reasons why it occurs in one person and not another. Eating disorders have the highest fatality rate of any mental illness. Like alcoholism, they are diseases and in essence addictions. While many people focus on the psychological factors behind the development of them, in the last five years more people are beginning to question the food people choose to ingest itself. In efforts to understand and fight the epidemic which is obesity in this country, experts have stumbled on evidence that shows that some foods are addictive to people in the same way alcohol or even heroin can be. It turns out that certain foods, for example ones filled with sugar, increase dopamine levels in the body, much like a drug does.
For some people, these raised dopamine levels can be explanations for why certain foods become actually irresistible. This would mean that when a person goes back for the fourth donut, they are not really chasing vanilla frosted goodness, but literally that ‘sugar high’ that comes from eating it.
Food allergies may also play a large role in eating disorders. Many common trigger foods, like cookies, ice cream and pies (all common food for the holidays) are problematic for people with ED's, not just because of their sometimes high calorie count, but because these foods tend to have sugar, wheat and gluten- all substances that people can be allergic or sensitive too. People with these allergies may find themselves strangely drawn to particular foods, and not know why. Not only do their bodies have a difficult time properly processing them, which could be a reason for why they never feel satisfied by them, but also eating these foods are causes of overgrowth of yeast in the body. While our bodies do need some yeast to be healthy, if we have too much of it, the effects can be horrible on the body. People can feel lethargic, depressed- they can even develop skin rashes, become bloated and gain weight. Furthermore, because yeast feeds on, surprise surprise-sugar, the body actually begins to crave it in order to feed the bacteria.
People are not often tested for food allergies unless they have experienced a severe adverse reaction to something they have eaten-think swelling up like a balloon after eating a peanut. Undiagnosed, they may find themselves frustrated by their “lack” of self control around these foods or weight gain. They may become more likely to go about loosing the weight in an unhealthy way, in comparison to someone who does not suffer from these food allergies. The high or clear headedness many Anorexics report in the beginning phases of starvation, may be a result of not ingesting these foods and the body feeling initially feeling better for it. The addictive properties in popular binge foods may explain why compulsive overeating and binge eating is difficult to stop.
There is no one reason why people develop eating disorders , but in the season where there is a emphasis on caring about your fellow man, make sure to be a little extra sensitive to that skinny cousin of yours who may be looking at your moms chocolate pie lustfully, even if she refuses a helping. Don’t give her a hard time. Fight the temptation to role your eyes when the overweight guy at your office swears this new year he’s finally going to loose the weight, because for all you know these people may be struggling with issues that are much bigger then a case of vanity or lack of will power. These people may be fighting real addictions and therefore health problems. They do not need our judgments, but love and support.
Happy holidays!
