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Article: - What are Anorexia and Bulimia?

Anorexia and bulimia are becoming increasingly common amongst teenagers – especially teenage girls. Official statistics suggest that around 2 in 100 UK schoolgirls now suffer from these eating disorders but the real figure is probably higher than that.

Most of those who have anorexia and bulimia don’t like to talk about it and as a result many teens go undiagnosed for a long time. Family and friends are usually the ones to first notice but broaching the subject and finding out whether there is a problem can be difficult and painful for everyone involved.

Anorexia nervosa
People who have anorexia try to eat as little as possible in order to try to lose weight. It may start off like a normal diet but ends up going much further, with the person sometimes losing so much weight that they become dangerously thin.

They often have a restricted diet, trying to keep to small amounts of ‘healthy’ foods such as salads and fruit which are not enough to sustain them. Other tactics they may use to aid weight loss include excessive exercise and using diet pills or laxatives.

Anorexics often think that they look fat when in fact they are really very thin. This distortion of body image can make it very difficult for them to stop feeling the need to starve themselves, and adds to the fact that this is a complex psychological condition that takes time a long, long time to recover from.

Read about the effects of anorexia on the body.

Bulimia nervosa
People with bulimia feel that they need to lose weight and set themselves a strict diet in order to achieve this. Unfortunately, as a result of their overly strict diet, they have a strong urge to eat and at some point, they finally break down and end up eating a large amount in a short period of time. Often they eat the foods they crave but which their diet denies them, such as chocolate, cakes and biscuits.

After this binge, bulimics feel guilty about their loss of control and want to purge their body of the food they ate. This most often takes the form of making themselves sick, but may also include laxatives and over-exercising.

It can be very difficult to identify teenagers with bulimia, as most are of normal weight. It is a secretive disorder which often carries with it feelings of shame and regret, and as a result bulimics may not confide in anyone for a long time.

Read about the effects of bulimia on the body.

If you think you may have anorexia or bulimia or that one of your friends may do, read about places to find support.

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