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Eating disorders in elderly women -- all you need to know

Eating disorders in elderly women -- all you need to know

Luke Coutinho explains the effects, causes and treatment options for elderly women with an eating disorder.

Written by Mansi Kohli |Updated : February 19, 2018 3:41 PM IST

Eating disorders and emotional eating in the current world is not just restricted to preteens, teenagers and young adults. Age, size, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status is no more a barrier for any disordered eating practices. The pressure to look good 24*7 and concerns about weight and shape can negatively affect lives of everyone, especially women. Not to mention, the hormonal changes that women undergo before, during and after menopause that brings both physiological and psychological changes. Luke Coutinho, Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine - Holistic Nutrition and Founder of PureNutrition.me helps us in understanding the effects, causes and treatment options for elder women with the eating disorder.

Adults struggling with eating disorders might suffer from anorexia, bulimia, OSFED, binge eating disorder, subclinical eating disorders, and/or orthorexia. Apart from these, dieting and body dissatisfaction (to have a thin body frame) are all risk factors for an eating disorder to develop amongst adults. Even emotional trauma, a difficult childhood, feelings of insecurity or an incident of the past (like sexual harassment) are also potential triggers of emotional eating disorders in adults. Not only fat shaming, but thin-shaming is also a culture these days. This can lead to low self-esteem in thin women and give birth to eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia, which causes a person to starve even while they may be underweight, or binge secretly and then purge. Do read about subtle signs that someone has an eating disorder.

The eating disorder can particularly affect middle-aged women: It s a sad truth that we live in a weight-obsessed society today, where culture overrides biology. Statistics show that women are 10 times more prone to developing an eating disorder than men. This profound discrepancy is owing to the changes that a woman's body undergoes during every stage of her life, right from teens up to menopause. The midlife phase of women is when physical and psychological transformations are at its peak. It s also the time when she attains a child-bearing age, so the fears of putting on weight or appearing plump and then once again getting back to the pre-pregnancy weight can play a lot with her emotions.

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In a pressure to control bodily changes and lose weight immediately after delivery, women turn to crash dieting which is a good enough trigger to induce emotional eating disorders in the long run. A few commonalities that one can see in every woman affected with binge eating disorder are:

  • They have always been on some or the other kind of diet.
  • They receive a lot of society and family pressure to look good.
  • They are unhappy with their bodies.
  • They are always preoccupied with thoughts around food and counting calories.
  • They weigh themselves daily.

Eating disorder is also a mental health condition: An eating disorder is a mental illness with close links to depression and anxiety. Individuals afflicted with this disorder follow extremes. They will either starve to skin and bones or eat until uncomfortably full and then purge. All these behaviours can cause damage to the gastrointestinal tract and can lead to acidity, leaky gut, autoimmunity, severely low immunity and also stomach cancers in a worst-case scenario. Continuous purging can put a pressure on the heart and damage teeth and gums due to the regurgitation stomach acids. There are vomiting-induced potassium losses too that can increase chances of cardiac arrest and may also result in death. Anorexia nervosa is one of the worst eating disorders and the cause of almost 20% deaths of chronic sufferers because of serious and irreversible nutritional deficiencies. Because of emotional turmoil and erratic eating patterns, there is a serious hormonal imbalance which pre-disposes one to a number of other health conditions like insulin resistance, obesity, thyroid issues and polycystic ovaries, etc. Here's more on facts about anorexia, the weight loss obsession.

Almost all eating disorders, especially binge eating, and bulimia gets one into a vicious trap of emotional eating where episodes of eating are followed by a feeling of guilt. So much so that one tries to numb by eating more food and feeling worse. So, even though eating disorder could be a mental condition, its ultimately our physical self that bears the brunt.

Practical ways by which middle-aged women can cope with eating disorders:

  1. Seeking professional counselling and sharing their feelings: There is no shame in talking about an eating disorder. Even at the slightest feeling, one must reach out for a professional support.
  2. Positive affirmations: Belief in the below-mentioned words whole-heartedly: I love and accept the way I am. I am wonderful. I bless my body with love. All parts of my body are beautiful. These are some examples of positive affirmations that one should repeat within themselves again and again so that it reinforced into their subconscious minds and their minds start believing the same.
  3. Developing an attitude of acceptance and letting go: As easy as it may be to say, developing an attitude of acceptance and letting go with regular practice is the only sustainable solution. One cannot change the outside world but the way it's perceived is totally under our control.
  4. Being more knowledgeable: Not everything that media claims or portrays is true. One must take it with a grain of salt. Remember, models, are photoshopped and airbrushed to look that way. Here's how yoga can help treat eating disorders like Anorexia and Bulimia .
  5. Forgo dieting and eat with balance and moderation: Dieting or any restricted form of eating isn t long lasting. It s often followed by suffocation, frustration and loss of control and hope. The only way out is to eat a balanced diet with moderation and balance with things that one loves to eat.
  6. Stop obsessing with the weighing scale: Any kind of obsession isn t healthy at all. This holds true for even those who step on weighing scales every morning. It leads to negative behaviours and thoughts the revolve around that weight all the time.

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