EATING DISORDERS AND EATING HABITS

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Having a party tonight? Will there be lots of food there? If there is lots of them, what kind of food? Fried chicken, fish curry, pork, etc.? If it is, I am sure you will have a field day tonight, savouring your favourite food which you craved for. However, you need to take precautions. Do you know that sometimes excessvie eating habits - don't want to eat much and want to eat very much - can lead you to some diseases. Excessive amounts of sudden types of food too may cause you some ailments.

There is a psycological disease called anorexia nervosa. This disease usually haunts females aged between 15-30 but males can be affected by that disease too but it is very rare. The cause of this disease is the terrifying feeling to have an overweight body. So, she will eat as little as possible to make the dream come true. If this does not fade away, most probably he/she may be affected by anorexia nervosa. The symptoms of anorexia nervosa is: eat as little as possible, have a very thin body till bones can be seen but victims of this disease usually think they are still fat, secretive about their diets and love having exercise. If these symptoms are found in someone, that someone better go and consult a psycologist so that he/she can be treated. Otherwise, it may lead to malnutrition, gastric and low blood pressure. Not only that, if this is not treated death is possible.

On the other hand, if someone eats too much, he/she may suffer from compulsive eating (an eating disorder) and this disorder may the lead to obesity. Compulsive eating usually happens when someone eats too much and this disorder affects men more than women. The cause, somehow is unknown. So, we actually may jump to conclusion that this disorder can also lead to heart dieseases, heart attcack and high blood pressure.

There is another eating disorder called bulimia nervosa (another eating disorder), According to doctors, the cause is still unknown. This disease actually changes your eating habits. Victims may often find themselves eating too much in a period of time and then may fast after that simply to lose weight. Similar to anorexia nervosa, the sufferer will often think themselves as excessively fat. The difference between anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervose is that bulimics hardly lose weight while anorexics lose weight. Any signs of this disease too must be treated by a psycological doctor to avoid other unwanted consequences. Now about the consequences of this disease. The change of eating habits cause by this disease may have serious effects on the sufferer's health. His/her (usually more common on women) body may not be receiving vitamins and other important nutriens sufficiently. Another consequence is that the repeated action of bingeing and vomitting and damage the oesophagus, the teeth and gums. Ulcers are likely to develop in the oesophgus due to the acid in the stomach used to break down food is unnaturally brought back up to the mouth to be vomitted out with the food which is originally consumed. This acid can also wear away the teeth and gums. In more severe cases, holes develop in the oesophagus.

Before we go on with eating habits, let's know the symptoms of all the eating disorders mentioned earlier.

Symptoms for anorexia nervosa:

• Rapid weight loss
• Wearing bulky clothes for warmth and to hide loss weight
• Frequent complaints about feeling cold
• Frequent weighing and execising
• Cutting food into tiny pieces and eating slowly

Symptoms for bulimia nervosa:

• Spots around the mouth
• Puffy face due to swollen salivary glands
• Constant use of laxatives
• Very sore throat

Symptoms of compulsive eating:

• Rapid weight gain
• Frequent stomach pain
• Depression

That's all for eating disorder. Now it is time to learn about the right eating habits. A proper eating habits is important and it is definitely a key to good health and longevity. To have this healthy eating habits we must make sure that we have all the important nutrients in our body. Lacking of any nutrients may cause malnutrition and as an outcome, some problems in our health.

Firstly, we must make sure that we have enough of vitamins - vitamin A, B (there are 8 different vitamin B), C, D, E and K. Vitamins are essential nutrients for our body. Vitamins help our body and our nervous system function well and it is helpful when your body needs to combat infections.

• Vitamin A - the sources of this vitamin are livers, milk, tomatoes, eggs, butter, green vegetables and carrots. If we have sufficient vitamin A, we would have a healthy skin and eys and helps to fight disease and infection.
• Vitamin B - the sources of this vitamin are yeast, wholemeal bread, nuts, peas, beans, fish, meat, eggs, milk, cheese, and green vegetables. Taking vitamin B helps your body to make energy from ffod and gives you a healthy skin. You will have a healthy nervous system too by taking sufficient vitamin B.
• Vitamin C - the sources of this vitamin are oranges, lemons, vitamin C tablets, limes, tomatoes, blackcurrents and green vegetables. It heals wounds and give you a healthy bloos, bums and teeth and provides protection from some infections.
• Vitamin D - the sources of this vitamin are livers, butter, cheese, eggs and fish. Sunlight too can help make vitamin D for your body. This vitamin gives you strong bones and teeth. Vitamin D also helps in absorbing calcium.
• Vitamin E - the sources of this vitamin are wholemeal bread, butter, vegetable oils, brown rice, and green vegetables. It helps your cells to grow heals your wounds. Besides that it prevents one to be sterile (unable to have children).
• Vitamin K - the sources of this vitamin are green vegetables, liver, soya beans and honey. It gives you blood and helps blood to clot at a faster rate. Excessive bleeding may be due to lack of vitamin K.

For a healthy body, we also need some minerals like sodium, calcium, iron, iodine, potassium, fluorine and zinc. Small amounts of each kind of mineral is only required to have healthy body. Here's the use of the minerals:

• Calcium - the sources of this mineral are milk cheese, bread, taufu, green vegetables and nuts. Calcium enables us to have strong bones and teeth but too much of it can make our bones and teeth brittle. Calcium also helps nerves to send impulses and muscles to contract.
• Potassium - meat friut and vegetables have a high amount of potassium. It helps food convert food into energy and potassium also aids nerve impulse transmission and muscle contracton
• Iodine - seafood, cod liver oil, fish and sea salt contain iodine. Iodine controls how the body releases energy from food and helps with the formation of hormone thyroxine (this hormone controls growth)
• Sodium - salt, meat and fish are sources for sodium. It ensures that the osmosis pressure in your blood is controlled and helps you to have a normal nervous system.
• Iron - liver, kidneys, shellfish, cereals and eggs are rich with this particular mineral. It makes haemoglobin (an oxygen-carrying substance made in the bone marrow). If someone lacks this mineral, they might end up getting anaemia - tiredness and pale skin are the symptoms of anaemia.
• Zinc - seafood, meat, poultry, lentils and beans have this mineral. It can help to heal wounds and helps with sexual development and production of the hormone insulin.
• Fluorine - this is found in sea fish and some tap-water. This mineral makes the enamels in our teeth to be strong and helps to keep our teeth healthy.

Besides that, we also need carbohydrates, fat and proteins. Carbohydrates are a major source of energy usually found in sugar and starch. However, if it is taken exceedingly, they will rot your teeth and make you fat. Starchy food - potatoes and cereals - are much better because it is a more lasting source of energy.

Fat provides us twice as much energy as carbohydrates and may contain vitamin A, D and E. our body actually need it to cushion delicate internal organs. Too much of fat may make you fat and make you suffer from heart disease and high blood pressure.

Proteins are also important. It is considered as a body builder. it makes and sometimes 'repairs' the cell tissue that build up our body. Young children really needs protein because without protein, they can't grow well.

So, since we need so much kinds of nutrients, we can say that one of the eating habits we need to inculcate is vary the kind of food which we consume daily. If we only eat certain kinds of food, it is possible that might be lacking of some types of nutrients. Besides that, by varying the types of food, and not eating too much of any kind of food so as to avoid diseases or infections which might be caused by the exceeding intake of sudden kind of nutrients (for example fat).

We must also make it a habit to avoid junk food, snacks, oily food and sugary food. Junk food contains food additives which might be harmful to our health and may also contain cancer-causing chemicals in those kinds of food. Oily food can cause the blockage of your arteries and sugary food may lead you to have an obese body if taken in large amounts.

We must also learn not eat between meals so as to not feel hungry very fast. Drinking more water too may also help us not to become hungry very fast.

If you are going out and eat, also make sure that you inculcate this habit - do not consume too much of unhealthy food. Make sure the food you order when you go out to eat contains sufficient nutrients for our body. Occasionally you may have some fried and oily food but make sure you do not take them too much.

Avoid yourself from skipping meals too. If you do, sometimes you might suffer from gastritis. Be accustomed to a ceratain number of meals only - breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper. Do not just keep eating and eating excessively every our otherwise you won't get use if there is no food at all around you and you will get hungry at a faster rate.

So, to take care of your health make sure have all the nutrients which your body needs. Lacking of any nutrients may make you sick. Lastly, I would like to stress the the secret of longevity is to have a balanced diet. So make sure you attain a good eating habit otherwise, as said, you are going to have a lot of medical bills in the future.

Written by the owner of the homepage