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Lecture Notes

Oftentimes a distorted body image can lead to unhealthy practices and, potentially, eating disorders. And although these disorders affect fewer people when compared to our problems with overweight and obesity, they're still important to understand. And so there are two that are listed here. There are certainly a whole host more, but we'll talk about two here.

The first is anorexia nervosa, and this is characterized by a distorted body image, self-starvation, and extreme weight loss. These people have an extreme fear of becoming fat, and actually think that they are fat even though oftentimes they are simply wasting away. And if left untreated it can not only result in weight loss but also in amenorrhea (or loss of a menstrual cycle for a woman), osteoporosis, muscle loss, and even potentially death if it's left untreated.

The second eating disorder here is bulimia nervosa, and this is controlled-characterized by uncontrollable cycles of binging-binge eating (or eating lots and lots of calories) followed by purging through either forced vomiting or the abuse of laxatives or diuretics. And so usually people with bulimia are in a normal weight range, unlike those with anorexia, but their weight might fluctuate due to that binging and purging cycle. And we know that that cycle puts a lot of strain on the body and has negative consequences.