You have not been eating like you should. You have noticed that something is wrong inside, and it expresses itself as an unhealthy relationship with food. You might eat too much, you may purge after eating or you may even tend to eat way too little. Whatever the case, eating disorders tend to be associated with mental issues, and learning how to cope with these issues is a critical part of keeping an eating disorder from doing significant harm to your health and well-being.
An Overly Critical Self-perception
One of the mental aspects of many eating disorders is that they will often arise when someone has a poor or obsessive perception of their own self-image. Someone may refuse food or purge simply because they see themselves as overweight. While it is normal to be concerned about excess weight, certain eating disorders tend to turn the need to maintain weight into an obsession that can go way overboard. If you or a member of your family is experiencing signs of an eating disorder, such as bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa, then you may want to seek help from an eating disorder center that can provide the counseling and approach necessary to help you restore a healthy self-image and reestablish a proper relationship with food.
Emotional Comfort
Some people develop food addictions out of an attempt to manage unmet emotional needs. You can develop a problem if food becomes a replacement that fills some emotional void in your life. Food becomes like a reward that mitigates the emotional discomfort or pain you are experiencing in such instances. Over time, using food to fill emotional needs can turn into an addiction where you depend on food to keep your emotions at bay.
Isolation
Another common problem with eating disorders is that they can often arise from people feeling isolated or they can cause people to engage in isolating behavior. You may not want others to know you have an eating disorder, for example. So, you engage in isolating behavior to try and hide the eating disorder from family and friends. However, it is really best to get your eating disorder out in the open and get the help you need.
Eating disorders are a common occurrence in modern society. From hormonal and chemical imbalances to a distorted self-image, there are many factors which cause and contribute to eating disorders and how they play out. Fortunately, an eating disorder does not have to ruin your life. You can reach out and get the help you need to cope and manage the mental triggers that lead to the onset of eating disorders.