Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2016 #EDAW16 by Dr Hugh Herzig

Did you know that next week 22nd – 29th Feb is Eating Disorders Awareness Week? Perhaps you already feel bombarded by news bulletins about the rising incidence of EDs… or how these days younger and younger people are affected. So why the need to be made more aware of EDs?

At Student Health we have good reasons to want to raise awareness of EDs:
• Eating disorders are not rare and exotic illnesses. They are common in the UK population, particularly so in adolescence and early adult years, and particularly so in student populations.
• They have a profound effect upon mental health, eroding well being and self esteem, so that nothing the sufferer does is ever good enough.
• They have serious physical effects on pretty much every biological system of the body such as skin and dental damage, gastrointestinal and heart problems, bone marrow and liver damage, hormone suppression and hastening the onset of osteoporosis. In fact, EDs lead to greater mortality than any other group of mental illnesses.
• Living with an ED can make life very hard indeed… friendships and social activities are deprioritised, leading to people feeling more and more isolated, anxious and depressed.
• Concentration and stamina can be much affected, so the sufferer cannot perform physically and academically to her/his potential
• Family and friends often don’t know what to say, or worry they will cause upset or have their head bitten off if they express their concern
• Some of our patients at Student Health get so unwell that they need to take time out from university. For those such as medics, vets and dentists whose degrees lead on to accreditation with a national professional body, their ED may make them unfit to practice as a registered professional.

ED Awareness week may provide an opportunity to break the taboo that surrounds EDs.

You may feel able to bring up this sensitive topic with that friend you’ve been worrying about, but who seems always to want to keep herself to herself. It is likely that doing so will help her… even if she seems not to appreciate it at the time.

If you have severe eating and weight anxieties yourself, this week may be the time to tell someone a bit about it, allow a friend to support you, maybe even seek help from your doctor. All the staff at Student Health are experienced in helping people with EDs, and in Bristol we have good services to treat eating disorders, including the First Step service which offers psychological treatments in our very own Health Centre

We are here to help YOU!

Eating Your Heart Out

Many of us eat chocolate when we want a treat, or when we’re having a bad day – and where’s the harm in that? 

 

We don’t just eat for health; the fact is eating is one of life’s pleasures.  There’s no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy food or use it now and then to lift our spirits: as the saying goes, “all things in moderation.” The difficulty comes when comfort eating becomes our main way of dealing with upset. 

 

Comfort eating provides a distraction from difficult thoughts and negative emotions but when it’s our only way of coping it can easily get out of hand: a bar of chocolate or a slice of toast can be the trigger for a full on binge.  Many people who overeat like this say that whilst they’re bingeing everything else seems to stop: they feel in a world of their own where difficult thoughts and feelings can’t touch them.  It’s only afterwards that the distress returns, only when it does it’s made worse by uncomfortable bloating, concerns about weight gain, frustration, guilt and shame. 

 

Such negative feelings in the aftermath of a binge can erode self esteem and increase vulnerability to future stresses and from here it’s easy to see how a vicious cycle can develop: upset leading to binge eating and binge eating leading to greater vulnerability to future upset so making binge eating ever more likely.  Many specialists see such vicious cycles as being at the heart of eating disorders.

 

There’s no harm in eating for comfort now and then, but if you find yourself trapped in the vicious cycle then it can be useful to know that there are ways of breaking out.  Whilst many people can break out on their own and with the support of friends and family, some people will need professional help. 

 

If you are struggling to manage disordered eating then perhaps the Student’s Health Service can help.  The Service offers specialist support for people with eating disorders and many students have used it to turn their lives around.  If you think you might need specialist help then the first step is a visit to your doctor.  Whilst it can be embarrassing to talk about such problems, all our doctors are fully trained and highly experienced in working with people battling eating disorders.   they may refer you to the practice’s psychologist or on to a more specialised doctor. There’s no shame in seeking help: rest assured you’ll be treated in confidence, with respect and sensitivity.

www.b-eat.co.uk