What are the psychological consequences of bulimia?

Bulimia is a disorder with very serious effects on health. However, the fact is often overlooked that beyond its impact on the body in the form of malnutrition and rapid weight changes, it also gives rise to harmful psychological phenomena.

So, in this article we will focus on the psychological consequences of bulimia, to see globally how it affects mental health.

• Related article: "Mental health: definition and characteristics according to psychology"

What is bulimia?

Bulimia is a psychopathology that is part of the Eating Disorders, a set of alterations characterized due to the fact that they give rise to harmful and maladaptive behavior patterns in the relationship that the sufferer establishes with the meal. Specifically, people with bulimia go through the experience of binge eating almost uncontrollably and impulsively to mitigate the discomfort, just afterwards to feel bad psychologically when realizing what they have done and try to “compensate” for this intake by burning calories as quickly as possible, sometimes resorting to vomiting induced.

There are two main types of bulimia: purging and non-purging. The first, as its name suggests, occurs when the person tries to get rid of what they have just eaten during binge eating as soon as possible, either through vomiting or through diuretics and laxatives. In the second, on the other hand, other strategies are chosen that the person believes to be effective in counteracting immediately the accumulation of calories, such as going for a run or fasting very ends.

In both cases, both the fact of eating excessively in very short periods and the attempts to compensate for those bingeings generate problems of health (the clearest are the injuries suffered in the teeth, in the upper digestive tract and in the fingers due to the acid that comes out with the threw up). Although it is not usual for death to occur due to malnutrition, as it can occur with anorexia nervosa, malnutrition caused by bulimia also can trigger other serious illnesses capable of ending the life of the person in the medium and long term.

On the other hand, Bulimia is one of the most frequent Behavioral Disorders; It mainly affects women, and it is estimated that in Western culture societies approximately 1.5% of females will develop this disorder at some point of their lifes.

• You may be interested: "Keys to understand eating disorders"

The main psychological consequences of bulimia

As we have seen, one of the characteristics that makes bulimia a very serious pathology is its ability to wear down physically to the person who suffers it, to the point that malnutrition and the weight fluctuations that it triggers put their health at risk. lifetime. However, beyond these medical problems, bulimia gives rise to other harmful phenomena that are of a psychological nature and they have to do with the way in which the person interacts with his environment and with his own thoughts and feelings.

So, let's see what are the psychological consequences of bulimia that should not be overlooked when cope with this disorder (bearing in mind that they do not always appear all at once in the same person with bulimia).

1. emotional hunger

Emotional hunger is the fact confuse a form of discomfort with a psychological root, on the one hand, with real hunger, for the other. It is common that those who present bulimia are not able to identify well the true nature of what that makes them suffer, and they end up thinking almost automatically that it is a sign that they need to eat.

• Related article: "Emotional hunger: what it is and what can be done to combat it"

2. Obsessive thoughts focused on trying to keep fit or get in shape

The dynamics of binge eating and compensation behaviors makes the person increasingly obsessed with counting calories and not gaining weight. That is, it predisposes the person to be alert to possible signs of having been eating too much.

3. Feelings of guilt that undermine self-esteem

People with bulimia feel very bad when they realize that they fall into the trap of binge eating over and over again, and often see it as a sign of "weakness", a moral defect. This damages your esteem and it makes them even more interested in not noticing what happens to them, something that makes them more complex in front of their own body.

4. excess anxiety

Anticipating that binge eating can strike at any time, these people often develop eating problems. anxiety maintained by the fact that they try to control the calories consumed at all times.

5. In extreme cases, suicidal ideation

Finally, the most developed and extreme cases, Suicidal ideation is not uncommon; that is, the tendency to recurrently think about the possibility of ending one's own life and often consider it as an apparent way out of the discomfort that one feels.

Do you want to have professional psychotherapeutic support?

If you are interested in having the help of a team of expert professionals in mental health to overcome bulimia or any other Eating Disorder, get in touch with us.

In Advance Psychologists We have been offering our services in this sector for more than two decades, and we serve adults as well as children and adolescents. In addition to performing individualized psychotherapy, we intervene through family therapy, couples therapy, speech therapy, sexology, neuropsychology and psychiatry. We can help you through face-to-face sessions at our center in Madrid (in the Goya neighborhood) or online by video call.