Gymnastics and Eating Disorders

It can lead to severe health problems and even death. Disordered eating is a general term used to describe a variety of abnormal eating behaviors that are used to maintain a lower body weight. There are many psychological, interpersonal, social, genetic, and biological factors contributing to the development of eating disorders. The following are some of the most common ones

Night Eating Syndrome Night Eating Syndrome is a relatively new disorder. A person with night eating syndrome will often eat large quantities of food after their last meal of the day. Usually just before bed and during the middle of the night. They in turn will skip breakfast and not start eating until the middle of the day. Those with night eating syndrome will not just indulge in the occasional midnight snack, they will typically consume high calorie, low nutritious foods often through the night.

Feeling that they will be incapable of falling back to sleep unless they eat. Once out of bed and at the refrigerator, the compulsion to eat makes them gobble down food. People with nocturnal eating syndrome are fully awake and remember the "raid" the next day. This syndrome is a combination of a sleep disorder and an eating disorder. Insomnia is also a factor in.

A number of studies show how very prevalent eating disorders can be among athletes of all kinds. Several sports do require the athletes to be quite thin. For the record, sports like gymnastics, dancing, figure skating and synchronized swimming cover an upper percentage of athletes suffering from eating disorders as compared to those playing basketball, volleyball and skiing.

Why is it that some people get benefits from this medication and some do not? And should Prozac really be a first line medication for eating disorders?

Nocturnal eating syndrome is characterized by compulsive raids on the refrigerator at night. People who are very light sleepers are usually prone to developing this sleep disorder. They wake up during the night and have an overly compulsive sleep.

In our society today, there's a lot of emphasis put on having the perfect body and for someone who has the idea their body does not measure up to what is considered perfect, then this is when an eating disorder may develop. Eating disorders are caused by a mindset and that thinking has to be dealt with before any chance of a recovery can be accomplished.

More and more younger children have contact to magazines and television programs that seem to glorify that except they are super-skinny, they are fat. This can also effect an eating disorder in children as they strive for acceptance by their peers and adults. Nearly all children are simply trying to please their parents or other influential adults in their life, their look, or the perception they have of their appearance, plays a most important part. These thoughts of how they look can manifest themselves into an eating disorder in children.

Binge eating disorder is a newly recognized condition that probably affects millions of Americans. People with binge eating disorder frequently eat large amounts of food while feeling a loss of control over their eating. This disorder is different from binge-purge syndrome (bulimia nervosa) because people with binge eating disorder usually do not purge afterward by vomiting or using laxatives.