Bulimia Nervosa: Causes, Symptoms, and Physical Effects

Some important details to know about Bulimia Nervosa, a serious eating disorder.

BULIMIA NERVOSA – A type of eating disorder that must betaken seriously is bulimia nervosa and here are the cause and effects of this.

A serious health problem and eating disorder is bulimia nervosa or also called bulimia alone affects females more compared to males. In this scenario, a person binges on large amounts of foods and eventually wanting to lose it all through dangerous methods such as vomiting, taking laxatives, not eating at all or fasting, and exercising excessively.

Bulimia Nervosa
Photo lifted from News Medical

On average, women aging 18 or 19 may have higher chances to suffer from this. Girls between 15 and 19 and young ladies in their early 20s are at higher risk.

Signs and symptoms of bulimia:

  • Being conscious of shape and weight.
  • Fear of gaining weight.
  • Repeated episodes of abnormally eating large quantities of foods.
  • Uncontrollable urge to binge and feast on foods.
  • Forcing self to vomit or exercise to lose the calories consumed.
  • Using laxatives, diuretics or enemas.
  • Fasting, restricting yourself of calories, or avoiding certain foods.
  • Taking supplements or herbal products to lose weight.

People with bulimia are hard to be identified because they can be overweight, thin, or having a normal weight but here are some red flags:

  • Complaining about being fat constantly.
  • Negative body image.
  • Strict dieting or restriction of food after binging.
  • Uncomfortable to eat in public in front of others.
  • Changes in weight.
  • Swelling in hands and feet and face and cheek due to enlarged glands.
  • Dental problems.

As per Healthline post, factors like anger issues, depression, perfectionism, impulsiveness, and past traumatic events might cause this.

This is how to determine the severity:

  • mild: 1 to 3 episodes per week
  • moderate: 4 to 7 episodes per week
  • severe: 8 to 13 episodes per week
  • extreme: 14 or more episodes per week

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