We don't really know what an eating disorder is… we just hear these "terms" being used and from that decide what an eating disorder is.But, the way that psychiatrist as well as therapists figure out that someone has an eating order and actually diagnose them is by referencing DSM. The DSM is a book that they use and it's short for the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders.
What does the DSM do? Why do they have this huge book taking up all this space? It's something that they use the same way a primary care physician would maybe take some blood work and go through his checklist to make sure you really do in fact have strep throat and not some other illness. So when someone comes into office and they're presenting with some symptoms, they want to go through the checklist to make sure that that it is actually an eating disorder and it's not actually
something else.
What the DSM has to say about eating disorders is that it's characterized by a severe disturbance in eating behaviors. Okay, that sounds like it could apply to a lot of us. What this really means in real life, is this person has SEVERE disturbances. I mean, when we plan events like "YES! Christmas dinner! My grandma is making that ham… I can't wait!" Or, "I am going with my partner and we're gonna grab a cup of coffee and desserts, delish! I so looking forward to that flour-less delicious chocolate dessert." possess that. You realize, that is NOT how they feel about it.
Those events that surround food, which, think for a second, that's A LOT of events… Everything that we do the tends to revolve around food. It's very anxiety provoking for them. It takes up a lot of their time, their thought-process. You know when something's really bugging you and you're sitting at your desk maybe at work all you may think about is that additional factor. And you recognize you haven't done any work, it'sbeen like forty five minutes. That's how it feels to them.
When I say an eating disorder is characterized by severe disturbances in eating behaviors... that's what I mean. these little instances that a lot of people take for granted; no big deal, great time, good food. Those aren't very happy times for them. They can be really stressful. I hope that clarifies a little bit about what an eating disorder is, so that we can kind of slough off the rest of what it is not… What the magazines might say it is or isn't. In future posts what I plan to do is talk about the different types of eating disorders so there's even more clarification around what anorexia really is, what bulimia looks like, things like that.