February 23 opens the National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, an entire week dedicated to eating disorders, which have a huge impact on many Americans.

 

Eating disorders are characterized by a preoccupation with weight that results in severe disturbances in eating and other behaviors. Eating disorders include anorexia (self-starvation and excessive weight loss), bulimia (bingeing followed by purging in the form of vomiting, fasting, over exercising or using laxatives, diuretics, insulin, or other drugs) and binge-eating disorder (characterized by frequent episodes of overeating without purging).

 

Most people with eating disorders are females. Males also can develop eating disorders, but do so less frequently. However, binge-eating disorder appears to affect almost as many males as females.

 

According to the National Institute of Mental Health Web site, eating disorders affect about 15 million people in the United States. Health experts say teens and young adults are especially vulnerable to eating disorders because of the media and the growing pressure to be prefect in a society where image is everything.

 

National Eating Disorder Awareness Week is here to remind people that they have to stop torturing themselves with new, unauthorized ways of losing weight. During this week, the National Eating Disorders Association will be holding many events to try to raise awareness of the various eating disorders out there. Its goal is to educate people so that they can recognize the signs and symptoms of these diseases earlier, to allow for faster treatment and better control of them.