Due to trauma or shock. When a person experiences a truly traumatic situation, especially when one bore witness to a gruesome event, the ability to eat is impaired. Here, appetite will suffer; and if not properly and promptly treated, the result is that a person may continue to miss meals, a situation that deprives the body of essential nutrients.
What Can Cause Eating Problems?
- Eating disorders may also arise due to an adult’s over-attachment to parents or to peers. This means that when a person feels very close to someone, chances are that person will find it difficult to be separated from family and friends. This is akin to separation anxiety wherein a person’s inability to cope with being separated stems into other areas, especially eating.
- Due to environmental influences. Today, everyone is exposed to a lot of stimulus and influences, especially from the media. As a result, a person develops his own perception of things, adhering instead to certain standards of beauty, fitness, and health that may have detrimental effects on the person’s overall health.
Eating Disorders Symptoms
Binge-eating Disorder: Here, a person eats excessive amounts of food regularly. This may happen even if one is already full, although the person will continue eating afterwards. In some cases, a person may eat even when not hungry, after which a person may “skip” meals or eat light amount, triggering another round of binge eating.
- A feeling of disgust or despair over the amount of food taken
- Eating quickly during binge episodes
- Eating to cause pain or discomfort to the body
- Eating more food during a binge episode than during a normal meal
Anorexia Nervosa: A person who suffers from this ailment is obsessed with food but likewise obsessed at being thin at the same time, often reaching to the point of depriving the body of essential calories. The following are the symptoms:
- Refusal to eat
- A thin appearance
- Fatigue
- Dizziness or fainting
- Dry skin and dehydration
Bulimia Nervosa: A person who suffers from the condition experiences bingeing but will afterwards purge himself of the food just eaten. The following are the symptoms of this kind of eating disorder:
- Hoarding of food
- Constant dieting
- Self-induced vomiting
- Menstrual irregularities in females
- Dry skin
- Abnormal bowel functioning
How to Prevent Problems Related to Eating
Most eating disorders occur during adolescence so parents have a better shot at preventing them, provided that they know the ways to keep the condition at bay. This is because eating disorders can be easily treated in adolescents because this age group has better means to understand counseling and advice.
- In this age of various and complex information, messages and knowledge often get mixed up, muddling any manner by which a person may perceive himself to be. For example, some individuals may perceive being thin as the optimum manifestation of health. Still others may think that being fat is the best manifestation of health. What parents need to do is to educate children with the proper parameters of health such as eating the right kind of food at the right intervals to provide the body with essential nutrients.
- Parents need to serve as role models for their children. This is to address the susceptibility of children to various information that may distort their thinking as to which is healthy and which is not. For example, snacking the right kind of food and at the proper amount and time will tell children the best time to have a snack and which food to eat.
Natural Remedies for Eating Problems
Because of the nature of these eating disorders, it is quite difficult to find an appropriate home remedy for the problem. The main consideration behind home treatment is more toward self-counseling and trying to cope with the factors that caused the eating disorders in the first place.
- Make sure to eat breakfast. This is because breakfast is the meal most frequently skipped by those who have eating disorders. Moreover, eating breakfast will provide your body with the needed calorie for the day, so even if you skip latter meals, you are not depriving yourself too much of essential nutrients.
- Drink milk every day. Most of those who suffer from eating disorders manifest aversion for solid foods. When this is the case, one will still be getting essential nutrients without eating solid foods by drinking one of the complete foods: milk.
- If one should binge on food, let it be on fruits and vegetables. Doing so will be beneficial for the body because these foods are rich in essential nutrients, so it will not really harm much if you stock up on it.
- When bingeing on food, make sure to clean up by drinking tea from ginger. This will keep your digestive system in top shape.
Diet For People With Eating Disorders
This question is akin to asking for the impossible. Unfortunately, a person who binges on food does not make any differentiation between healthy foods and those that are junk. On the other hand, for those who have anorexia nervosa, there is a total avoidance for food, which is likewise dangerous for the body. As a matter of fact, the kind of food available is rarely a matter of concern for those who have eating disorders: those who binge will just devour it, while those who shun food will just waste it just the same.
Nonetheless, because an eating disorder can lead to serious health problems, it is necessary to provide a person with the condition the vital nutrients to keep the body nourished. One way to accomplish this is to always give the patient with milk. Even if there is no intake of solid foods, milk will provide most of the essential nutrients needed. Preferably, milk should be given first thing in the morning and at various intervals for the rest of the day.
Another diet good for those who have eating disorders is to drink fruit juices regularly. This will provide the body with nutrients such as vitamins and minerals that can compensate for nutrients the body is deprived of due to absence of solid foods.