Normal body weight can hide the seriousness of some eating disorders

Eating disorders awareness week - February 4th - 10th, 2007

Ask most people to describe someone struggling with an eating disorder and they will draw on the television and newspaper images of dangerously thin models and actresses as an illustration. Anorexia Nervosa is usually the most well-known of the various eating disorders due to the visible low weight of people with this disorder.

An eating disorder that is more difficult to identify because sufferers often have normal body weights is Bulimia Nervosa. In 2000, the American Journal of Psychiatry reported that an estimated 1.1% - 4.2% of females suffer from bulimia in their lifetime. This prevalence rate is higher than the estimate of those suffering from anorexia. While concerns about weight and shape are central to the disorder, individuals often fall within a normal weight range for their height and age. For this reason, people may think it is not a serious problem or fail to recognize the problem.

Individuals who suffer from bulimia experience regular occurrences of binge eating. Binge eating is a period of out of control eating and the consumption of a large quantity of food, usually over a short period of time. People describe eating until they feel painfully full or sick, often accompanied by feelings of shame, guilt and fear of weight gain at the end of the binge. They follow it with one of a number of different measures to prevent gaining weight. Continuing this behaviour for long periods of time can lead to serious physical problems such as cardiovascular and digestive disorders and tooth decay.

According to Ms. Lauren Goldhamer, an Eating Disorders Specialist with Bellwood Health Services, "People with bulimia can be plagued with worry and anxiety about food and weight. Attempts at strict dieting and failure to maintain the diet can trigger a vicious cycle of binge episodes. Because the calories consumed on a binge can be quite high, despite efforts to compensate for their overeating, people struggling with bulimia usually fall within the average weight range."

Bellwood Health Services Inc. is an accredited addiction treatment centre in Toronto offering services and programs for eating disorders, alcohol and drug addiction, problem gambling, sexual addiction and PTSD for men and women across Canada. Bellwood offers free information and referral services and has a 24-hour a day, 7 days a week toll free telephone line.

For more information about Bellwood's treatment programs for bulimia and other eating disorders, or other Bellwood programs and services, visitwww.bellwood.ca , or contact Charles Senior at 1- 800-387-6198, Ext. 302.