Eating Disorders: How They Affect The Way We See Ourselves
Eating disorders are psychopathologies that interfere with the way people relate to food and their physical self-image. They are a way in which mental health problems show us the extent to which the way we see ourselves can contribute to deteriorating our physical health through one of the basic biological functions.
There are several eating disorders, each of which has its own characteristics that differentiate them from others; But they all have in common a great capacity to damage a person’s quality of life; some of them are associated with a high risk of death. For this reason, they currently constitute a serious public health problem, increasingly affecting adolescents and pre-adolescents, who are not comfortable with their bodies and long to see themselves differently on a physical level, partly pressured by the cultural dynamics of a society that gives great importance to physical image and unattainable standards of beauty.
With the aim of deepening knowledge about these disorders, below we will give a review of the main symptoms of eating disorders, emphasizing the impact they have on our self-perception.
These are the main symptoms associated with this type of self-destructive disorder, and its effects on the way we perceive our bodies.
1. Anorexia
Anorexia is one of the most common eating disorders that exist and is characterized by an irrational fear of gaining weight on the part of the person who suffers from it which is why he avoids eating at all costs.
This fear ends up causing a drastic weight loss in the long run, and endangers the person’s health, leading to death due to starvation. Although it does not generate hallucinations or modify in any way the way in which the person sees and touches their own body through the senses, the way in which they value it and their way of feeling when faced with these stimuli is altered: The individual perceives his body as much less thin than it really is.
There are many behaviors that people with anorexia put into practice to avoid gaining weight and among which we can highlight eating in very small quantities, doing long days of fasting; very radical diets or purgative behaviors (vomiting, excessive physical exercise or use of laxatives).
Regarding the psychological symptoms of anorexia, we can highlight fear or discomfort when eating in the presence of others; anxiety when being around food or thinking about it and the lies that are usually told to hide the illness or to pretend that one has eaten more than the actual amount ingested.
This disorder usually affects adolescents and young people more; Those who present cases of anorexia in a greater proportion in our country are women between 10 and 34 years old who may present cases of amenorrhea or absence of menstruation due to serious nutritional deficiencies caused by lack of intake.
2. Bulimia
Bulimia is another of the most common eating disorders in today’s society and is characterized by the tendency of the person to gorge on food uncontrollably and compulsively, and then vomit it up or try to purge it by other means due to the feeling of guilt. and anguish that these episodes generate.
They develop habits to expel ingested food or prevent all of it from being completely digested such as vomiting, excessive exercise and the use of laxatives or other remedies or drugs to lose weight.
Bulimia can occur together with other disorders such as depression or anxiety disorders, and one of the classic characteristics that these people present is going to the bathroom right after eating. Despite not being based as much on a distorted perception of the body as is the case with anorexia, people who suffer from it tend to focus a lot on their body, blaming themselves for the apparent defects they see in it and entering into a dynamic of self-sabotage and even self-punishment.
3. Permarexia
Permarexia is one of the most recently studied eating disorders, and is characterized by the obsession that people who suffer from it have with not gaining weight and not gaining weight, and also with counting the calories they eat.
Thus, they are constantly following very extreme diets, which They usually generate malnutrition or even malnutrition Although these people do not look much less thin than they are, they do have a tendency to obsessively focus on the fat they accumulate, and their daily lives are full of self-checking behaviors in front of a mirror.
People with permarexia usually put into practice restrictive diets to lose weight quickly and mainly to avoid gaining weight. These diets, in turn, usually cause serious long-term health problems such as hypothyroidism, gastric ulcers or hypoglycemia.
Permarexia is not characterized by vomiting habits or the consumption of laxatives or other purgative substances, but it is related to emotional and psychological alterations, low self-esteem, obsession with food and relationship difficulties.
4. Vigorexia
Vigorexia is characterized by an obsessive concern for one’s own body and its size, giving rise to an obsession with gaining strength and/or muscle mass to such an extent that people engage in constant physical exercise at a very high level or eat excessive amounts of food.
Although it is an alteration closely linked to men, there are women who can also have this type of disorder due to current unrealistic beauty standards based on great physical shape at levels unattainable for many people.
Vigorexia is strongly linked to excessive physical exercise and the maintenance of a very unbalanced diet in which carbohydrates and proteins predominate, with an absence of lipids, which can lead to serious diseases and health problems. Additionally, these people are more likely to consume trenbolone or other steroids to gain muscle quickly, putting their health in second place.
How eating disorders affect body self-image
Body self-image is the way that all people perceive themselves, whether positively or negatively, when we look in the mirror or think about our body. It is a fundamental element of self-concept, which in turn is linked to self-esteem.
This way of perceiving ourselves contributes greatly to our emotional and psychological well-being, as well as our self-esteem and our attitude in life, depending on whether it is positive or negative.
Once we have learned the main symptoms of eating disorders, let’s see the impact they have on body self-image.
1. Anorexia
Anorexia is one of the disorders with the greatest impact on body self-image and that most distort the reality that the person believes they perceive when they look in the mirror.
People with anorexia become obsessed with food to avoid gaining more weight and although they are usually below their healthy weight, they always have the need to lose more weight because in their mind they see themselves as weighing more than they really have.
This heightened distortion of reality leads them to do everything possible to lose weight and generally causes permanent arguments and conflicts with the people around them.
2. Bulimia
People with bulimia usually have a normal weight but see themselves as overweight, and often may have previously had cases of anorexia.
This concern for one’s own image, equally distorted, pushes them to carry out inappropriate compensatory behaviors such as excessive exercise, vomiting, or using purging drugs
Bulimia is one of the most difficult disorders to identify since the person can apparently lead a normal life, eating completely normally and having a normal weight there are no physical signs that a disorder or alteration in eating behavior may exist.
3. Permarexia
Permarexia is not characterized by a distortion of one’s own body, but the exacerbated fear of gaining even the slightest weight can cause the person to start maintaining unhealthy eating habits.
This obsession with the food ingested manifests itself in the detailed and sick study of the calories contained in each of the foods that are going to be eaten something that in the long run gives these people great psychological discomfort and also frequent arguments with their environment.
4. Vigorexia
Vigorexia is characterized by a distortion of the body itself, but unlike the previous cases, the person perceives themselves as smaller or less muscular than they really are.
That is why people with this disorder have a tendency to exercise intensely obsessively to achieve the body they want, although they always end up being dissatisfied with the result and always want to achieve an unattainable physical ideal.
