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| Maggie Caldwell |
A
person who practices normal eating behavior usually eats only until he or she
is full and does not spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about diet
or exercise. A disordered eater may
regularly eat (or not eat) for reasons that are not directly related to hunger
or need for nutrition. For instance, he
or she may eat because of a break-up, or bad grade., or avoid eating when he or
she is hungry because of fear of gaining weight.
She or he may have
an internal list of “good” foods that are okay to eat and “bad” foods to stay
away from, based not on any medical need, but simply type or calorie
level. These “good” and “bad” foods may
be whole categories, like meat, or starches or fats. If so, the disordered eater can wind up with
a serious nutritional imbalance. This is
not to say, of course, that there are never good medical or dietary reasons to
avoid certain food categories, but disordered eaters generally are not
following doctor recommendations.
A person with
disordered eating may indulge in “secret eating”, when he or she eats a lot of
fast food or junk food and then hides the “evidence”. This often works together with the idea of
some foods being “good” and others “bad”.
Sometimes cravings for the “bad” food take over, and a person will buy
something at a drive-thru or a convenience store, eat it very quickly, and then
get rid of the “evidence”, throwing away wrappers somewhere other than his or
her own garbage can.
At its worst, disordered eating can lead to an
actual eating disorder, such as anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder. Most people who experience disordered eating
never develop these more serious disorders, but disordered eating reduces one’s
ability to enjoy life to the fullest.
- Maggie Caldwell
