How to identify if an eating disorder exists in your surrounding

This is a piece I found from a group of Colombian investigators about eating disorders and how to identify when they might be happening.

• One of the main things that they talk about is how for a lot of patients this was an issue that started during the time of the pandemic in lock down. Especially in the cities there was a lot of isolation, there was a lot of fear surrounding the economy and a lot of uncertainty in the world which lead to there being a rise in eating disorders in the years that have followed after the pandemic in 2020 in this cases there are worst symptoms in the patients. One of the main things one should try to do is catch the issue early and this is where parents need to learn what is going on. (Parents don’t think its real or try to ignore it because they are not aware that it is happening or some of them even like it because it is helping their children fit into a standard that we have all had in our brain as what should be done).
• There are physical warning signs and this include when there is a large amount of weight loss, this also causes malnutrition which comes with their own set of symptoms including hair loss, always feeling cols and period irregularities. they also talk about the fact that not all eating disorders mean that there is extreme weight loss there are a lot of eating disorders where the weight might remain stable or even have an increase, however one thing that is persistent in all of this eating disorders is the fact that there is always a fear of gaining weight. (It is extremely important to explain and get education out there to say that eating disorders do not just include loosing a n extreme amount of weight there are a lot of them that do not include this and there is even a weight gain for example I suffered from a very strong bulimia for a long time and people would not notice it because I was of a healthy weight or even at times overweight so it did not make sense to them that I needed help and my family was not doing this because they did not care but because they did not know).
• (There are a lot of signs that are actually in a form of behavior and that need to be looked at closely because you don’t want to be the person that is responsible for offsetting a moment to make a person uncomfortable and take a path like this because of their own personal trauma) The signs that one might look out for are a lot of new found interest in cooking and nutrition knowing how many calories are in everything, what oil and amount is being used, they will start to only eat certain types of food for example what is considered healthy and will not have anything else, leaving the table and going straight to the bathroom between meals, social media and being on a path of only following people who are fitness influencers and about diets and healthy eating (an example I can think about is how know there is Liv Shmidt and the skinny society and how now everyone is obsessed with walking because it is the new trend to follow). Felling guilty after eating and doing an exaggerated amount of eyxcersice.
• There are also a lot of emotional signs that can be seen in individuals who are suffering through an eating disorder (One thing that I think is very important is to not look at them through the eyes of judgment and thinking that they are doing this to themselves and they are not being honest but you have to look at them as sick and needing help whenever I felt judged I felt the urge to go back to my compensatory habits but when people actually sat down and tried to understand it was what helped the most). They start to have a lot of moments of sadness, irritability, low self esteem, mood swings and are always on edge (They are always scared of getting caught) there is also the fact that there starts to be a distortion on their body image they start to think they look different than how they actually look and there is distress about what they look like. There is a severe dissatisfaction with their bodies and they are always chasing the self imposed impossible standards but it is not just about their body you start to see this surrounding their food, school, work and there is a level of perfectionism and severe fear of failing.
• There are different tips that they try to give parents in this article, they say that they should not try to approach it through hopping that is they ignore it then it will go away the research and statistics show that this actually makes the situation worse. Open up spaces to speak about this and dont just wait until they ask for help try to intervene when you see there is a problem and speak about it openly, DOnt make this the discussion you have around the dinner table because there is already a lot of pressure in that space if your child is suffering try to talk about other subjects at the dinner table. Gently try to get them some help maybe starting out with a therapist they feel safe speaking to.

this was an interesting article because I think that a lot of parents might be able to see themselves somewhat through this because parents don’t now how to act when it comes to this subject there is a lot of pressure on parents but no one has taught them how to be parents there is no perfect way to handle a subject such as an eating disorder and disordered eating with a child or loved one and this gives some good tips on what one should do I think that there should be more information about what to do when the eating disorder looks different than what the stereotype we have built in our brain is because even if they look healthy they are not necessarily healthy and they deserve the same kind of help and attention.