Eating disorders

An eating disorder is that condition that is characterised by acute disturbance in eating behaviour. The two main forms are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

A central feature of anorexia is a body weight that is low for age, height and sex of the person. These persons experience an intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat. People suffering from bulimia have recurrent episodes of binge eating. An episode of binge eating is characterised by eating an amount of food that is definitely larger than most people would eat during a similar time period.

Then there is a repeated inappropriate compensatory behaviour in order to prevent weight gain. This may include self-induced vomit, misuse of laxatives and diuretics, fasting or excessive exercise (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association on Mental Disorders, 1994).

Eating disorders are mainly experienced by adolescent girls and young female adults, although young adult boys and men are also prone to suffer from these disorders. Figures of people suffering from an eating disorder remain low because the problem is very well concealed or under-diagnosed. This means that the number of persons suffering from one of these disorders may be even higher than what has been reported.

In Malta we have people suffering from an eating disorder and also survivors of eating disorders. Survivors are those who identified themselves as sufferers of eating disorders, decided to take action, sought help, and now consider their disorder to be in control. The problem of eating disorders exists in all societies. However, this is a topic that we do not talk about very often.

Eating disorders seem to be a subject that is being ignored and, moreover, there is very little research being carried out. In fact, an article that was published about three years ago in a local newspaper reported that there was a lack of local research being carried out on eating disorders. Moreover, in our opinion, there is also a lack of formal services in the treatment of eating disorders. While we have very good practitioners who work with and help persons suffering from these disorders, we do not have a formal structure or service that was set up exclusively to cater for these persons. We do believe that the problem of eating disorders should be taken more seriously.

For this reason we have chosen to research this topic while writing our dissertation. "Survivors of eating disorders - their help seeking experience from the 1990s to 2002" for our BA (Hons.) degree in social work.

As part of our research we are interviewing people who have suffered form an eating disorder and sought help during this time period. We would therefore like to invite persons who suffered from an eating disorder and sought help during this time period to participate in our research.

We ensure total confidentiality and no names or any other personal information will be published. Those interested may contact us on 99461381 or 79674477.