Addiction for food and its differences with bulimia
The anxiety when eating (you can find out more about how to control the anxiety of eating) is a form of anxiety manifested by the compulsive food intake, generally when the person feels nervousness due to a concern or to a certain situation (which can be past, present or even future), which leads him to eat without stopping.
In this sense, a habitual disorder related to anxiety when eating is the addiction for food, consisting of a type of non-chemical addiction that should not be confused with bulimia (although it is true that it may have some similar determined symptoms).
It is also a mistake to consider that addiction to food means in turn being overweight, although like some symptoms related to bulimia, they also tend to tend to go together.
What does it mean to be addicted to food?
It means that the person who is addicted to food spends most of his time busy eating, constantly thinking about food.
Because of this, your emotions or your way of eating tend to be closely related to the amount of food.
Causes of food addiction
Although the addiction to food has different causes that can cause its appearance, it is true that to overcome it is essential that the specialist focuses on the real cause that has caused and causes its appearance.
- Emotional mismanagement
- Impulsiveness.
- Unsatisfactory life
- Few or no skills to solve problems.
- Little or no tolerance for frustration.
It is a mistake for the person to focus on what they eat and what they should eat, since these are not the causes that cause the appearance of this addiction.
How to overcome the addiction to food?
As we indicated in the previous lines, it is essential to look at the causes that have led to the appearance of addiction, and never on what you eat or what the person should eat.
On many occasions, addiction tends to appear in impulsive people who have problems with their self-esteem (they usually have low self-esteem), who have problems solving their own problems and tend to get frustrated easily.
Therefore, the strategies indicated by the specialist must deal with solving and increasing self-esteem, providing techniques to the patient that helps them to better tolerate frustration, find the causes of why they consider that their life may be unsatisfactory and provide skills for the resolution correct of problems.
As we can see, when faced with the least symptom of addiction to food, it is essential to go to the specialist, who will assess the situation and help us in the end to solve the addiction.
And what is bulimia? What are your differences?
The bulimia is, next to the anorexia nervosa, two of the disorders of eating behavior more common and better known today by the diffusion that they have given different media in recent years, and the criticism that some advertisements or fashion events have received in this regard.
As we explained to you earlier in another article, the bulimia It is characterized as a behavioral disorder in which the person tends to overeat, in an exaggerated and compulsive way, without actually being able to or not to be hungry, to later feel guilty.
It is usually a disorder that tends to affect women more than men, although at present many specialists are finding cases in which men are the main protagonists.
Which are the symptoms of bulimia and what could be the best treatment for bulimia?.
Symptoms of bulimia
- Recurrent binge eating, in which the person eats compulsively and then tends to feel bad for having done it. To identify and be able to confirm this symptom, a minimum of two binge-eating episodes per week must occur for at least three months.
- Regular use of self-induced vomiting, medicines or diuretic or laxative infusions. You can usually find scars on the fingers caused by self-induced vomiting.
- Monitoring of strict diets or fasting.
- Practice of intense exercise that helps to avoid weight gain.
- Absence or irregular menstruation.
- Eat in secret
- Symptoms of depression, including melancholy, pessimistic thoughts and even recurring ideas of suicide.
- Sensation of loss of self-control during binge eating.
Treatment of bulimia
Generally, the treatment for bulimia It can be ambulatory or hospitable.
Once the bulimia has been detected, the treatment will be to avoid recurrent vomiting to normalize the correct metabolic functioning of the patient, then impose a balanced diet and the adoption of new eating habits.
Together with this basic treatment, the psychologist carries out a treatment that pursues a clear objective: to restructure the rational ideas of the person and to correct the erroneous perception that this one has of his own body. This article is published for informational purposes only. It can not and should not replace the consultation with a Psychologist. We advise you to consult your trusted Psychologist.
