Can you develop an eating disorder unconciously?

[naiwen]

This will sound like a very odd post but for the past week or so I have been anxious and had no appetite at all.:confused:

I will have iced coffee for breakfast, juice and crackers for lunch and about half my normal evening meal.

But I am not focused on my weight or dieting and I dont think I look fat or disgusting. I am a normal size ten and no where near perfect but not bad either.:o

So is it possible to get this sort of problem when you are not obssessed with your weight?

I have only lost about 3 kg this week so no need to panic atm, the dizziness is annoying though :dizzy:

[Funkychicken]

Eating disorders are cunning and baffling. If you were to ask anyone who suffers or has suffered an eating disorder to pinpoint when it began, they would be hard pushed to know exactly when.

It is an insidious condition that mostly begins by creeping up on the sufferer, who has no real conscious knowledge of it happening. it is usually other people who first notice and start commenting-family are the worst for this. Comments such as, Are you losing weight? or Gee, you're looking a bit skinny.. are pretty common and usually have the sufferer reacting by brushing it off very quickly.

I guess there are probably cases of conscious intentional development of an eating disorder but for the most part, it is unconscious.

Hope that helps. :)

[Phyllis Stein]

I was under the impression that you'd have to have a degree of conscious body dissatisfaction to develop an eating disorder, but I'm no expert. You just sound quite blase about your body image, so I would honestly have thought it was something else.

Appetite is strongly linked to emotional state and stress levels though.

My take on it would be nutritional. A magnesium deficiency can cause everything you mentioned, that is, assuming the dizziness is caused by low blood sugar and not low blood pressure...

It might be worth a trip to the doctor for basic blood tests, to rule out physical causes.

[ManekiNeko]

Eating disorders don't have to be from body image. They are what they say they are an eating disorder. Remember there are many types of eating disorders and while most of the common ones appear to be image based they are infact emotive based.

I heard of a 3 year old that had an eating disorder and would only eat Ritz crackers nothing else... Turned out he had reflux and developed an unhealhty aversion to food because of the pain it was causing. His case shows a disorder doesn't have to revolve around body image.

[meredithlinda]

I had a friend who was very very skinny, and I always wondered if she had an eating disorder, but convinced myself she didn't after a few years. All of a sudden she was in hospital being treated for annorexia, and in chats we had later she told me she was taught that eating disorders are not about how big or little you are - but what goes on in your mind. And she was actually concerned that I might have an undiagnosed problem as I've never been happy with how I look. (But I like my food too much lol)

[gizmoduckus]

Have you been extremely stressed lately?

My mum, whenever she gets stressed, loses her appetite. When she first split up from my dad she hardly ate anything for months.

The best thing you can do is to go see a doctor to rule out an eating disorder or another illness.

[samken]

Have you been extremely stressed lately?

My mum, whenever she gets stressed, loses her appetite. When she first split up from my dad she hardly ate anything for months.

The best thing you can do is to go see a doctor to rule out an eating disorder or another illness.

I'm the same. I think it is strange that other feel like they can eat when stressed.

I don't think what you are doing is unusual but you should try and make sure what you are eating is healthy as dizzy spells can by signs of iron deficiency or sugar low. Two things that happen to me.

[naiwen]

Thankyou for your replys everyone,

I have been stressed but normally I only go off my food that much when DS is in hospital.

I have started taking floradix to help with iron though so hopefully that will help!