Eating Disorders

The most common eating disorders are:

1. Anorexia Nervosa. This is when you try to keep your weight as low as possible by not eating enough food, exercising too much or both.
2. Bulimia. This is when you sometimes lost control and eat a lot of food in a short amount of time (this is called binging) and then you are deliberately sick, use laxatives, restrict what you eat or exercise to try to stop you gaining weight.
3. Binge Eating Disorder (BED). When you regularly lose control of eating and eat large portions of food all at once until you are uncomfortably full and then feel upset or guilty.
4. Other specified feeding or eating disorder (OSFED). This is the most common type of eating disorder and is when your symptoms may not match anorexia, bulimia or BED.

Some common symptoms of eating disorders include:

• Spending a lot of time worrying about your shape and your weight
• Avoiding socialising if it involves food
• Eating very little food
• Deliberately making yourself sick or taking laxatives after you eat
• Exercising too much
• Having very strict habits or routines around food
• Changes in your mood

There are also physical symptoms such as:

• Feeling cold, tired or dizzy
• Problems with digestion
• Your weight being very high/low for your age/height
• For women, not getting a period