Understanding and Overcoming Eating Disorders: A Comprehensive Guide

Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses characterized by abnormal eating habits that negatively impact physical and emotional health. People with eating disorders develop an unhealthy obsession with food, weight, and body image, which leads to unhealthy eating behaviors. These behaviors can be dangerous and even life-threatening.

Mental and behavioral signs may include:

1. Dramatic weight loss
2. concern about eating in public
3. preoccupation with weight, food, calories, fat grams, or dieting
4. complaints of constipation, cold intolerance, abdominal pain, lethargy, or excess energy
5. excuses to avoid mealtime
6. intense fear of weight gain or being “fat”
7. dressing in layers to hide weight loss or stay warm
8. severely limiting and restricting the amount and types of food consumed
9. refusing to eat certain foods
10. denying feeling hungry
11. expressing a need to “burn off” calories
12. repeatedly weighing oneself
13. patterns of binge eating and purging
14. developing rituals around food
15. excessively exercising
16. cooking meals for others without eating

missing menstrual periods (in people who would typically menstruate) 

Physical signs may include: 

1. stomach cramps and other
2. gastrointestinal symptoms
3. difficulty concentrating
4. atypical lab test results (anemia, low thyroid levels, low hormone levels, low potassium, low blood cell counts, slow heart rate)
5. dizziness
6. fainting
7. feeling cold all the time
8. sleep irregularities
9. menstrual irregularities
10. calluses across the tops of the finger joints (a sign of inducing vomiting)
11. dry skin
12. dry, thin nails
13. thinning hair
14. muscle weakness
15. poor wound healing
16. poor immune system function