![Anorexia, bulimia: how to explain these disorders?](https://img.passeportsante.net/1000x526/2017-12-15/i81895-anorexie-boulimie-comment-expliquer-ces-troubles.jpg)
December 15, 2017.
Anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders, which mostly affect girls and particularly around puberty. How to detect these behaviors to treat young people who refuse the image of their body?
Eating disorders: a refusal of one’s own body
In France, 230,000 women suffer from anorexia or bulimia. These two behavioral disorders are linked to a refusal of the image returned by one’s own body, especially during puberty. Why at the time of puberty in particular? It is a time of major personality and body changes.. Some young girls, often marked by trauma (rape, touching, family separation, romantic break-up), refuse these changes. Girls can refuse or control their femininity: anorexia can block periods and thinness makes the breasts disappear.
The family environment also plays a big role: “Personality elements more or less influenced by the family framework often come back”, explains Doctor Rocher, referent psychiatrist of the outpatient addiction treatment center of the Nantes University Hospital. Thereby, ” Sometimes the mother of the young patient suffers from anorexia herself or is obsessed with her own physical appearance “.
How to detect an eating disorder?
To detect, report and help a young person who suffers from anorexia or bulimia, you have to analyze your eating behavior. Several situations exist: either he refuses all food, or he eats but then makes himself vomit, or, in the event of an attack of bulimia, he eats enormous quantities of food and then proceeds to what are called purges. In all cases, external signs are visible: weight loss and extreme thinness, damaged teeth due to acidity in the mouth (caused by vomiting), stomach pain.
When the body mass index drops to 13, hospitalization (and a catheter break) becomes necessary, even vital. ” In principle, patients consult us voluntarily, but it happens that some are in true denial or refuse to seek treatment », Adds Doctor Rocher. In this case, the caregivers can proceed, in agreement with the parents, to a forced hospitalization without consent. A psychological or psychiatric follow-up must be started to save the young patient.
Maylis Choné
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