Other Types Of Eating Disorder

Anorexia Athletica / Compulsive Over Exercising - (top)

Compulsive Exercise is often referred to as Anorexia Athletica, which is when a person no longer enjoys exercise, but feels obligated to do so. Someone with this disorder is most prominently female between the ages of 12 and 19, may experience a sense of guilt and anxiety when missing a work out, and not even sickness or injury can stop him/her from fulfilling the need for exercise.

Individuals with Anorexia Athletica may:

• Repeatedly exercise beyond the requirements for good health
• Be a fanatic about weight and diet
• Steal time to exercise from work, school, and relationships
• Strive to achieve and master ever more difficult challenges and forgets that physical activity can be fun
• Define self-worth in terms of performance
• Rarely or never satisfied with athletic achievements and pushes onto the next challenge immediately
• Justifies excessive behavior by defining self as a "special" elite athlete

Orthorexia - (top)

Orthorexia is an unhealthy fixation with healthy eating. Orthorexics are obsessed with food quality, rather than quantity, and strive for personal purity in their eating habits rather than for a thin physique.

• Spending more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food
• Planning tomorrow's menu today
• Feeling virtuous about what they eat, but not enjoying it
• Continually limiting the number of foods they eat
• Experiencing a reduced quality of life or social isolation (because their diet makes it difficult for them to eat anywhere but at home)
• Feeling critical of others who do not eat as well they do
• Skipping foods they once enjoyed in order to eat the "right" foods
• Feeling guilt or self-loathing when they stray from their diet
• Feeling in "total" control when they eat the correct diet

Night Eating Syndrome (NES) - (top)

Night Eating Syndrome (NES) is an eating disorder that is characterized by the consumption of more than 50 percent of daily calories after dinner and waking up at least once a night to consume high-carbohydrate snacks. Foods eaten during the nighttime binge are often high caloric in content and unhealthy. After the night binge, the person is usually not hungry in the morning.

• Have little or no appetite for breakfast. Delays first meal for several hours after waking up. Is not hungry or is upset about how much was eaten the night before
• Eat more food after dinner than during that meal
• Eat more than half of daily food intake after dinner but before breakfast. May leave the bed to snack at night
• Feels tense, anxious, upset, or guilty while eating
• Has trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Wakes frequently and then often eats
• Ingests food that are often carbohydrates (sugary and starch)
• Has a sense of guilt and shame, no enjoyment

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