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The Truth about Eating Disorders
What most people don’t understand about eating disorders, including the people who are suffering from an eating disorder, is that these disorders actually have very little to do with weight. It’s hard to understand this because most eating disorders that we think about center around weight loss. However, the truth is that most eating disorders are about control more than anything else.
This, of course, doesn’t mean that the all cases of eating disorders are about control, it just means that a large portion of those cases are about control. If you look at the people most likely to develop an eating disorder, they are teenaged girls who come from what are considered to be good homes.
These girls are also considered to be extremely well behaved, and they do very well in school and other activities. They have well structured, well ordered lives. In most cases, their parents have structured and ordered those lives for them – and the teenage girl herself feels that she has very little control in any of these matters, usually because she doesn’t.
What she does have control of however is what she puts into her mouth or whether she keeps that food in her stomach or not. That is typically one of the only things that she feels that she has full control of, even if she doesn’t realize that this is how she is feeling. She may even tempt herself, unknowingly, so that she can prove to herself just how much control she has. As you may know, it isn’t uncommon for people who have an eating disorder to cook a great deal for other people – and then not eat a single bite of the food. This is an inner control issue that they usually don’t even recognize.
With that said, however, there are other issues – besides control – that can lead to an eating disorder, and those issues don’t have anything to do with weight either. For example, depression and anxiety can lead to an eating disorder. Low self-esteem or self-worth can also lead to an eating disorder. Troubled relationships, being teased, being abused, or any other number of problems can lead to eating disorders.
The thing to realize the most is that the cause of the eating disorder must be discovered before any treatment will be of any real value. It is also important to realize that the person who has the eating disorder doesn’t necessarily know what the cause is.
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