It’s unfortunate that there is such a stigma associated with eating disorders in this country. Most of the time where there is a stigma with an issue, it’s due to ignorance, and that’s the same case when it comes to eating disorders. Many people don’t know how to deal with eating disorders and some don’t even if their issues are due to mental illness or not. Let’s cut through some of this misinformation by looking at the link between eating disorders and mental illness.
So, Are Eating Disorders a Mental Health Issue?
If you feel like symptoms associated with your health, weight, and food are having a negative impact on your life, then yes, you may be dealing with a mental health issue presenting itself in the form of an eating disorder.
Symptoms such as severely limiting your intake of food and nutrients, binging, binging, and purging, obsession with weight loss, inducing vomiting, and extreme amounts of exercise are not normal for a healthy individual.
These types of symptoms cannot be attributed to other parts of the body. When you suffer from cirrhosis of the liver, you treat the liver. When you have a broken toe, you put the toe in a split. In the case of eating disorders and symptoms of eating disorders, the issue is coming from your brain. Since this is where the issues are coming from, this is the area you must treat. When you have a mental illness, you must treat the body and the mind.
While there are several different causes of eating disorders, it is a certainty that all eating disorders become better under professional treatment. Because there are many different causes behind eating disorders, there are several forms of treatment.
Treatment of eating disorders may come in the form of one-on-one counseling or therapy, group therapy, and in some cases outpatient and inpatient treatments depending on the severity of the eating disorder.
If you feel you or someone you know is dealing with an eating disorder, it’s best to act before something too damaging happens. A good place to start are mental health support lines and calling local therapy and offices around your area. The sooner you start taking care of an eating disorder, the better the outcome is likely to be.