Eating Disorder Symptoms - Symptoms of Bulimia

There are two types of bulimia nervosa:

· Purging bulimia nervosa: -- The victim binge eats and then vomits or uses laxatives, diuretics, or enemas to get rid of the food.
· Non-purging bulimia nervosa: -- The victim binge eats then goes to the other extreme of behavior, using fasting or excessive exercise, but without using vomiting, laxatives, diuretics, or enemas to rid themselves of calories.

It is difficult to easily identify a person suffering from bulimic binge eating . Unlike anorexics, bulimics look like they have a normal body weight and seem to have normal eating patterns. Normally a bulimic’s body weight is around the average range, although is possible to see large weight fluctuations in the person. It is typical for bulimics to be obsessive over body image and weight and frequently dieting. They are obsessive over their self worth as related to body weight and shape. Often these factors completely dominate their thoughts in evaluating their worth as a person. People with bulimia hide their eating problems and are often ashamed and attempt to hide their symptoms. The binge purge cycle is often hidden, and public eating patterns vary from normal to highly restrictive.

Bulimia has specific characteristics - recurring episodes of binge eating, happening at least two times a month for a minimum of three months. And eating a volume of food that is obviously larger than most people would consider a normal amount to eat during a similar period of time and under similar circumstances. And the victim has a sense of no control over eating during the episode. They may have a feeling that they cannot stop eating or control what or how much they are eating.

Bulimics often engage in behaviors that prevent themselves from gaining weight. Behaviors include such things as vomiting, excessive use of laxatives, diuretics, enemas, medications, starvation (fasting), or obsessively exercising. And inappropriate recurring episodes of this compensatory behavior in order to prevent weight gain. The victim’s self worth is normally tied directly with their weight and how they perceive their body image.

Bulimics differ from anorexics in two ways. First, they eat. Second, they employ different methods to get rid of the calories consumed. People with bulimia binge eat an excessive amount of food in a short period of time, much more than the average person would normally eat in the same amount of time. Bulimics often have no control over their eating and will continue to eat until all the food is consumed. When the food is gone, guilt takes over and they go to extremes to eliminate the food through self induced vomiting, abusing laxatives or diuretics, taking enemas or abusing other medications, or burn off the calories with obsessive exercising. Sometimes fasting for days is employed after a particularly bad binge. The overall goal is eliminate all of the calories consumed during the food binge.

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