Eating Disorders & Its Affect On The Body Shape

Body image concerns and eating disorders go hand in hand. Often, it’s the dissatisfaction in a young person’s appearance that leads them to opt for – losing weight and enhance their appearance. Thus, restrictive eating and over workout can often lead to patterns of disordered eating, this can develop into anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, compulsive overeating or binge eating disorder.

Disordered eating behaviors act as an obstruction in the way of healthy experience of emotional, social and spiritual development of an individual. They are not the ‘real’ efforts to stay ‘healthy’, and they require professional help. Behaviors associated with eating disorder may include:

• Crash diets and extreme workout, irrespective of the weight
• Increased intake of laxative or diet pills
• Increase intake of caffeine or using illicit stimulant drugs to suppress appetite
• Forceful trips to the washrooms right after meals
• Binging unknowingly.

Eating disorders can affect people of any age, but is most commonly seen in kids, especially amongst girls.

How to manage body issues with diet?

A normally healthy range for an individual can be perceived as overweight by someone with a distorted body image. For an anorexic woman, she might visualize her shadow bigger than herself, similarly for an obese patient, he might always be under an impression of him being small and lean.

Treatment: Due to the complexities of these conditions, its best to get professional help in establishing healing and recovery.

Diet planning is the best treatment protocol. It  involves weight restoration and stabilization, guidance for normal eating, and the integration of an individualized meal plan.

A healthy meal plan would be to start your day right with:

• Healthy proteins and carbs to maintain satiety.
• Do include nuts in your day’s diet to meet your micronutrient requirements.
• Stay hydrated, have at least 3 liters of water a day to flush out toxins and regenerate good cells in body.
• Have a rainbow to keep you in shape- it’s an old saying but lives up to every word.
• Eat small frequent meals to maintain satiety. It also helps supervise your portion size.