A real issue in our world!

Ok so right now I am going to touch on a very controversial subject. I know this subject can be very touchy for people that have dealt with it, are dealing with it, or you know someone that has. I can personally say I have had to deal with this, not myself but with someone I was very close to before, but can never fully understand it from the inside view.

We always hear so often about the obesity epidemic which yes there is one and its not going anywhere, and its going to get worse unless we deal with it. But there is another issue that I think is kept in hiding. Yes it might not be as large of an issue as obesity but it is just as damaging.

So how did I come up with the the idea to write an article on this and why? Well after browsing youtube.com and uploading my weekly nutrition tip for everyone to read. I fell across a video on Anorexia. After watch about 5 videos of real people battling their anorexia or sharing their story of the journey through it and where they are now. After watching the video it touched me so much because I do not think people realize how big of an issue it is especially in our society today with how media wants you to think. Also with me starting to get involved with youth I feel I have to touch on this as most cases are started in adolescence.

So what is Anorexia? This is what answers.com defines it as, "Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by unrealistic fear of weight gain, self-starvation, and conspicuous distortion of body image. The name comes from two Latin words that mean nervous inability to eat."

Yes anorexia is a disorder, just like so many other things. Anorexia has the highest death rate of mental disorders with 5-20% of people dieing from it. It does such a damage on your body that even when people survive and recover end up with permanent damage to their body.

One of the biggest parts of the body that gets damaged are your bones. When we are at the early stages of our life we are still growing and happen to acquire most of the bone mass during those stages to last us your entire life. "There's a narrow window of time to accrue bone mass to last a lifetime," says Diane Mickley, MD, co-president of the National Eating Disorders Association and the founder and director of the Wilkins Center for Eating Disorders in Greenwich, Conn. "You're supposed to be pouring in bone, and you're losing it instead.

But that is not just all, your heart is right up there with the bones. When you are starving yourself you lose muscle mass at a rapid pace. "It gets worse at increasing your circulation in response to exercise, and your pulse and your blood pressure get lower," says Mickley. "The cardiac tolls are acute and significant, and set in quickly."

Those are just the two biggest but the rest of what happens is just as important. Your body goes through hell and back, you weaken your body's immune system so they are constantly catching infections and are at such a higher rate of catching anything they come in contact with as they are unable to fight it of. This can turn into a downward spiral.

With women once they start to lose weight and stop eating if effects the body's natural process's it goes through such as the menstrual cycle. And this has shown to have long term effects on women that want to later have children. "In truly, fully recovered anorexics and bulimics, it looks like the rate, frequency and number of pregnancies is normal," says Mickley. "However, if you look at infertility clinics, and those patients in the clinics who have infrequent or absent periods, the majority of them appear to have occult eating disorders. They may think they're fully recovered, but they haven't gotten their weight up high enough."

One thing that you will usually see is people that are anorexic usually have the disorder Bulimia. The defanition of Bulimia as by Medterms.com is.

"Also called bulimia nervosa. An eating disorder characterized by episodes of secretive excessive eating (binge-eating) followed by inappropriate methods of weight control, such as self-induced vomiting (purging), abuse of laxatives and diuretics, or excessive exercise. The insatiable appetite of bulimia is often interrupted by periods of anorexia."


With bulimia it can cause even more damage to the body by frequently forcing your body to vomit you increase the stomach acid, which people have said make them feel as if they are drinking Drano. Also this can lead to enamel coming off of your teeth and changing the color of them. Also it can lead to esophageal cancer.

What can be done to fix this?

"The real focus has to be on weight restoration if you want to reverse outcomes," says Rebecka Peebles, MD, a specialist in adolescent medicine at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. "That's the most essential part of treatment. You can't wait around for it to happen. It really is an essential first step in treatment and recovery."
"
Unfortunately, say experts, too many people believe that anorexia is strictly a psychological disorder, and ignore its medical complications unless the patient becomes visibly, dangerously thin. "A lot of people -- parents, and even some doctors -- think that medical complications of anorexia only happen when you're so thin you're wasting away," says Peebles. "Practitioners need to understand that a good therapist is only part of the treatment for anorexia and other eating disorders, and that these patients need treatment from a medical doctor as well."

The sad thing is most insurance companies will not pay for in patient or out patient treatments and if they do its only about 1/4 of what the person needs. These treatments run anywhere from $30,000 a month to $100,000 a year.

"Access to care is a huge issue," says Mickley. "Eating disorders aren't staged the way cancer is, so we don't have the way to convince insurance companies that a low potassium level can be like a small metastasis. It's only recently that we've begun to understand the genetic and neurochemical basis of anorexia and say that this is a real illness, not a whim of spoiled rich girls. It's been treated like it's voluntary and willful as opposed to what it is: a serious, life-threatening psychiatric and medical illness."

That to me is a big issue and I fully believe people should be able to get treatment, because yes just as with overweight people a lot do it to them self but there is a bigger issue behind it as well with genetics and imbalances in the the body. Just like with eating disorders mentioned above. If someone needs help for something that is life threatening and just ignoring it by not providing help if its party there fault or not I think is wrong. What do you think?

Here are a few statistics about how large of an issue this more. Like I said a lot more than you might think.

1- It is estimated that 8 million Americans have an eating disorder – seven million women and one million men

2- One in 200 American women suffers from anorexia

3- Two to three in 100 American women suffers from bulimia

4- Nearly half of all Americans personally know someone with an eating disorder (Note: One in five Americans suffers from mental illnesses.)

5- An estimated 10 – 15% of people with anorexia or bulimia are males

6- A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover

7- The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.

To me that one is pretty crazy

8- 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems

9- Only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders receive treatment

10- Anorexia is the 3rd most common chronic illness among adolescents

11- 50% of girls between the ages of 11 and 13 see themselves as overweight


Let me know what you think on this issue if you feel the way I do about it. That its a larger issue than we make it, if its effected by the media, and how we can change it. Let me know what you think if you have a different view point on this topic also. Here are two videos I that really touched me to write this.





Dedicated to your success,
Matt Holmes


Resources

Wedmd.com
Answers.com
Medterms.com
South Carolina Department of Mental Health