Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are characterized by severe disturbances in eating behavior. A person with an eating disorder can use eating, purging or restricting their diet to deal with their problems. Some of the underlying issues that are associated with an eating disorder include:
- Low self-esteem
- Depression
- Feelings of loss of control
- Feelings of worthlessness
- Identity concerns
- Family communication problems
- Inability to cope with emotions
Eating disorders are usually divided into three categories:
- Anorexia Nervosa: People with anorexia severely limit the amount of food they eat and become dangerously thin.
- Bulimia Nervosa: People with bulimia will eat large amounts of food in a short time (binge). Then, they will do something to get rid of the food (purge). They may vomit, exercise too much or use medicines like laxatives.
- Binge Eating Disorder: Uncontrollable eating resulting in weight gain.
Symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa
People who have anorexia often strongly deny that they have a problem, so it's usually up to their family and friends to get help for them. People who have anorexia:
- Weigh much less than is healthy or normal.
- Are very afraid of gaining weight.
- Refuse to stay at a normal weight.
- Think they are overweight even when they are very thin.
They become focused on controlling their weight by:
- Obsessing about food, weight, and dieting.
- Strictly limiting their food intake.
- Exercising a lot, even when they are sick.
- Vomiting or using laxatives or water pills (diuretics) to avoid weight gain.
- Developing odd habits about food, like cutting all their food into tiny pieces or chewing every bite a certain number of times.
- Becoming secretive. They may pull away from family and friends, make excuses not to eat around other people, and lie about their eating habits.
As starvation sets in, they start to develop signs of serious problems throughout the body.
Symptoms of Bulimia Nervosa
People who have bulimia may not be thin. They may be a normal size. They may binge in secret and deny that they are purging. This makes it hard for others to know that a person with bulimia has a serious problem. If you are concerned about someone, look for the following signs:
- Going to the bathroom right after meals.
- Overeating without weight gain.
- Eating in secret, hiding food.
- Exercising a lot, even when not feeling well.
- Often talks about dieting, weight, and body shape.
- Using laxatives or diuretics often.
- Teeth marks or calluses on the back of her hands or swollen cheeks or jaws. These are caused by forced vomiting.
Symptoms of Binge Eating
People with binge eating disorder frequently eat large amounts of food (beyond the point of feeling full) while feeling a loss of control over their eating. Although the bingeing behavior is similar to what occurs in bulimia nervosa, people with binge eating disorder usually do not engage in purging by vomiting or using laxatives.
Many people who have binge eating disorder use food as a way to cope with uncomfortable feelings and emotions. These are people who never learned how to properly deal with stress, and find it comforting and soothing to eat food. Unfortunately, they often end up feeling sad and guilty about not being able to control their eating, which increases the stress and fuels the cycle.
- Frequent episodes of eating what others would consider an abnormally large amount of food
- Frequent feelings of being unable to control what or how much is being eaten
- Eating much more rapidly than usual
- Eating until uncomfortably full
- Eating large amounts of food, even when not physically hungry
- Eating alone out of embarrassment at the quantity of food being eaten
- Feelings of disgust, depression or guilt after overeating
- Fluctuations in weight
- Feelings of low self-esteem
- Loss of sexual desire
- Frequent dieting
Getting Care
TRICARE covers services necessary to treat eating disorders, however TRICARE does not cover services received in freestanding eating disorder centers as they do not meet the requirements to be TRICARE-authorized providers.
Your rules for obtaining care may differ depending on who you are and which health plan option you are using. Learn more about getting mental/behavioral health care.
Last Modified:June 20, 2012
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