As part of Her Campus Exeter’s Mental & Physical Health Awareness Campaign we will be exploring the dangers of EDNOS and Binge Eating Disorder. This campaign hopes to raise awareness of mental & physical illnesses within the student population and break the misconception that if you can’t see it then it’s not there.
Every few days someone dies of Anorexia, and therefore media coverage – although still not prominent enough – is starting to focus in on the serious nature of this illness. However, there are many eating disorders that are completely left in the dark, and this can often mean that sufferers are particularly isolated due to stigmas deeming their eating disorders as not amongst the most ‘serious’ ones.
EDNOS is Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, and for many this does not mean that it is someone with mild eating problems that is not ‘worthy’ of being labelled ‘anorexic’ or ‘bulimic’. This can be people who show many signs of Bulimia or Anorexia but not all. Or this can be people who eat only orange food or eat only on even hours – real examples that may sound ridiculous but actually trapped the patients in hell-holes.
I have known some of the most ill people in inpatient facilities to have been labelled EDNOS. This is because eating disorders are mental illnesses. Therefore, some of the people who spend their entire days trapped in the darkest depths of eating disorder behaviours are diagnosed EDNOS. Anorexia has unrealistic defining characteristics; many health organisations do not recognise people in healthy BMIs as being anorexic – which undermines the fact that anorexia is a mental illness, not a word for underweight people.
This leaves those who show every sign of anorexia but are not yet severely underweight can be labelled EDNOS, and often not recieve the treatment they need as a result. I have known girls who eat nothing at all for days but then binge severely due to their mental anguish and desire to eat. This means they can be considered a ‘healthy’ weight but be as mentally ill and physically ill as those underweight due to a damaged metabolisms, their hair falling out, lacking necessary vitamins and minerals, punishing themselves through extreme exercise or purging and having dangerously low heart rates and sodium levels.
Eating disorders are not more extreme than others. ALL eating disorders ruin the lives of the patients and families and friends they affect. ALL eating disorders cause unbelieve pain and anguish, suffering, and mental and physical decay.
However, those patients labelled with less common and less stereotypically ‘severe’ diagnosis such as Binge Eating Disorder suffer often the worst as society does not always deem them ill enough compared to the obviously underweight dying anorexic.
Binge Eating Disorder is a real thing. Most people love to eat a bit too much cake or chocolate during movie nights or special occasions. Everyone has eaten a bit too much and felt too full and slightly sick before (Christmas for example!). But Binge Eating Disorder is a serious illness. Sufferers can destroy their stomachs and bodies through excessive consumption of thousands upon thousands of calories at any one time.
Many misconceptions surround this disorder. It is not about overweight greedy people who just want to eat as much cake as they can, it is about men and women around the world being locked into a cycle of thinking food will calm their mental anguish. Just as some severely mentally hurting people use drugs or alcohol to attempt to stop the pain in their heads; people with binge eating disorder use food. Their brains make them eat copious and often sickening amounts of food as a coping strategy. They often spend the binges alone in their rooms, crying, hating themselves more than anyone thought imaginable. They use food as a punishment. They force themselves until their bodies can physically take no more, hating themselves more with every mouthful. This eating disorder is as severe as any other, and often unrecognised.
Food should never be used as a coping mechanism, as a punishment or as a strategy to ease pain. Food is fuel, it is energy, and it is about enjoyment, socialising, feeding your body and soul. But for ALL eating disorders, including ENDOS and Binge Eating Disorder food becomes a weapon that harms and destroys.
It is rarely about the food with eating disorders, it is often more underlying severe mental health problems. For me, anorexia was about punishment, self-loathing, control, and severe fear of being overweight. I have friends who have used bulimia to control their body weight and to punish themselves for eating and I know people with extreme OCD that led to severe controlling and restrictive patterns or dangerous eating.
Those suffering from any eating disorder should not be labelled as having a less severe or less dangerous eating disorder. Any form of eating disorder is a method of hell and pain and no one label can be compared to another.
To learn more about EDNOS and Binge Eating Disorder please visit these sites: