It often starts as a simple desire to lose weight, but the diet soon takes over your life. All you think about is food, yet you're afraid to eat. Afraid to be fat. Afraid to lose control. Sometimes you do eat, and then often the eating turns into an uncontrolled binge. Ashamed and disgusted, you purge the food through vomiting or laxatives or even by using the stair climber for an hour. You know something isn't right, and you're afraid. Yet you don't know what to do.

Eating disorders are dangerous, and can lead to malnutrition, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, muscle wasting, neurological impairment, rupture in the esophagus, sudden low blood pressure, osteoporosis, loss of menstrual cycle (amenorrhea), erosion of tooth enamel, irregular heart beat and even death.

Disordered eating is estimated to affect five to10 million girls and women and one million boys and men. To deal with this crisis, we need to understand disordered eating and know where to go for help.

Types of disordered eating

Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia often begins with a need to control surroundings, low self-esteem and the fear of becoming fat. Obsessive dieting leads to starvation. And controlling the amount of food eaten becomes a major source of control for everything else that goes on in life. Typical symptoms of anorexia are obsessive exercise, calorie and fat gram counting, restriction of food, denial of hunger, use of coffee or smoking to avoid eating and an overwhelming concern with body image. People with anorexia never see themselves as thin. In their eyes, they are always fat, no matter how little they weigh.