Eating disorders: how they affect the way we see ourselves

Eating disorders are psychopathologies that interfere with the way people relate to food and their physical self-image. They are a way in which mental health problems show us to what extent the way we see ourselves ourselves can contribute to deteriorating our physical health through one of the biological functions basic.

There are several eating disorders, each of which presents its own characteristics that differentiate it from others; but they all have in common a great capacity to damage the person's quality of life; some of them are associated with a high risk of death. For this reason, they currently constitute a serious public health problem, increasingly affecting adolescents and pre-adolescents, who are not comfortable with their bodies and crave seeing oneself in a different way on a physical level, partly pressured by the cultural dynamics of a society that places great importance on physical image and canons of beauty unattainable.

In order to deepen the knowledge about these disorders, we will now give

a review of the main symptoms of eating disorders, emphasizing the effect they have on our self-perception.

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

Symptoms of eating disorders

These are the main symptoms associated with this type of self-destructive disorder, and its effects on the way we perceive our bodies.

1. Anorexy

Anorexia is one of the most frequent eating disorders that exist and is characterized by an irrational fear of gaining weight on the part of the person who suffers from it, which is why he avoids eating by all means.

This fear ends up causing drastic weight loss in the long run, and endangers the person's health, leading to death by starvation. Although it does not generate hallucinations or modify in any way the way in which the person sees and touches his own body through the senses, the way in which he values ​​it and his way of feeling before those stimuli is altered: the individual perceives his body as much less thin than it really is this.

There are many behaviors that people with anorexia put into practice so as not to gain weight and among which we can highlight eating in very small quantities, doing long days of fasting; very radical diets or purging behaviors (vomiting, exaggerated physical exercise or use of laxatives).

Regarding the psychological symptoms of anorexia, we can highlight fear or discomfort when eating in the presence of others; anxiety when being near food or when thinking about it and the lies that are usually given to hide the disease or to pretend that more than the actual amount ingested has been eaten.

This disorder usually affects adolescents and young people more; Those who present cases of anorexia in a greater proportion in our country are women between 10 and 34 years of age., who may present cases of amenorrhea or absence of menstruation due to serious nutritional deficits caused by lack of intake.

• You may be interested in: "Anorexia nervosa: symptoms, causes and treatment"

2. Bulimia

Bulimia is another of the most common eating disorders in today's society and is characterized by a person's tendency to gorge themselves on food. uncontrollably and compulsively, to later vomit it or try to purge it by other means due to the feeling of guilt and anguish that these generate episodes.

They develop habits to expel ingested food or prevent all of it from being fully digested, such as vomiting, excessive exercise and the use of laxatives or other remedies or drugs to lose weight.

Bulimia can co-occur with other disorders such as depression or eating disorders. anxiety, and one of the classic characteristics that these people present is going to the bathroom right after to eat. Despite not being based as much on a distorted perception of the body as it is with anorexia, people who suffer from it tend to paying close attention to their body, blaming themselves for the apparent defects they see in it and entering into a dynamic of self-sabotage and even self-punishment.

• Related article: "Bulimia Nervosa: The Binge Eating and Vomiting Disorder"

3. permarexia

Permarexia is one of the most recently studied eating disorders, and is characterized by the obsession that people who suffer from it have for not gaining weight and gaining weight, and also for counting the calories they eat. ingest.

Thus, they are permanently following very extreme diets, which they normally generate malnutrition or even malnutrition. Although these people don't look much less skinny than they are, they do have a tendency to notice obsessively on the fat they accumulate, and their day to day is full of self-checking behaviors in the face of a mirror.

People with permarexia are used to putting into practice restrictive diets to lose weight quickly and mainly not to gain weight. These diets, in turn, often cause serious long-term health problems such as hypothyroidism, gastric ulcers or hypoglycemia.

Permarexia is not characterized by vomiting habits or by the consumption of laxatives or other purgative substances, but it is related to emotional and psychological alterations, low self-esteem, obsession with food and relationship difficulties.

4. vigorexia

Vigorexia is characterized by an obsessive preoccupation with one's own body and its size. giving rise to an obsession with gaining robustness and/or muscle mass, to such an extent that people come to perform constant physical exercise at a very high level or eat excessive amounts of food.

Although it is a disorder closely linked to men, there are women who can also have this type of disorder due to unrealistic current beauty standards based on great physical fitness at levels unattainable for many people.

Vigorexia is strongly linked to excessive physical exercise and the maintenance of a very unbalanced diet in which carbohydrates and proteins predominate, with an absence of lipids, which can lead to diseases and health problems serious. Also, these people are more likely to take Trenbolone or other steroids to gain muscle quickly, putting their health second.

How eating disorders affect body self-image

Body self-image is the way that all people perceive ourselves, either positively or negatively, when we look in the mirror or think about our body. It is a fundamental element of self-concept, which in turn is linked to self-esteem.

This way of perceiving ourselves greatly contributes to our emotional and psychological well-being, as well as our self-esteem and our attitude in life, depending on whether it is positive or negative. negative.

Once we have learned the main symptoms of eating disorders, let's see the effect they have on body self-image.

1. Anorexy

anorexia is one of the disorders with the greatest affectation in body self-image and that further distort the reality that the person thinks they perceive when they look in the mirror.

People with anorexia become obsessed with food so as not to gain more weight and although they are usually below their healthy weight, they always have the need to lose more weight because in their mind they see themselves as weighing more than they really are have.

This heightened distortion of reality leads them to do everything possible to lose weight and generally causes permanent arguments and conflicts with the people around them.

2. Bulimia

People with bulimia are often of normal weight but see themselves as overweight, and may often have previously had anorexia.

This preoccupation with one's own image, equally distorted, pushes them to carry out inappropriate compensatory behaviors such as excessive exercise, vomiting, or the use of drugs to purge

Bulimia is one of the most difficult disorders to identify since the person can apparently lead a normal life, eating with total normal and having a normal weight there are no physical signs that there may be a disorder or alteration of behavior in her food.

• You may be interested in: "Bem's theory of self-perception: definition and characteristics"

3. permarexia

Permarexia is not characterized by a distortion of the body itself, but the exacerbated fear of gaining the slightest weight can cause the person to start maintaining little eating habits healthy.

This obsession with ingested food manifests itself in the detailed and sick study of the calories in each of the foods that are going to be eaten, something that in the long run provides these people with great psychological discomfort and also frequent discussions with their environment.

4. vigorexia

Vigorexia is characterized by a distortion of the body itself, but unlike the previous cases, the person is perceived as smaller or less muscular than they really are.

That is why people with this disorder have a tendency to obsessively perform intense exercise to achieve the body they want, although they always end up being dissatisfied with the result and always want to achieve an ideal physique unreachable.