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Causes of Eating Disorders

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Causes of Eating Disorders
Elwyn Daroya
Ryerson University
Word Count-1695

For a lot of people, eating is a major aspect of everyday life; you eat to keep your energy up and to stay alive. There are however, people who face varying degrees of psychological problems in regards to eating. Eating disorders are a major concern, more so for women than men. According to Statistics Canada, women are ten times more likely to develop eating disorders than men, and of these individuals that suffer from eating disorders, the majority start developing eating disorders in their teenage years. Binge eating, which is an eating disorder where in which an individual uncontrollably eats, is the more prevalent eating disorder among many age groups in Canada. Furthermore, the latest studies have shown that in Canada, the two most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa. Among young people in Canada today, 0.04% of females are diagnosed with the complete definition of anorexia nervosa, while young males are 0%. Bulimia nervosa on the other hand is common among 0.3% of young women and 0.2% on young men. Anorexia nervosa in the simplest terms is a condition in which a person is unwilling to maintain a healthy body weight. Likewise, bulimia nervosa is a condition in which an individual uncontrollably over eats in one session, then tries to balance this action of over-eating by getting rid of it through various ways (usually vomiting). Unlike bulimia nervosa, people who suffer from anorexia nervosa usually have more control over eating; sufferers from bulimia nervosa have very little to no control over how much they eat. In both cases, ninety percent of the individuals that suffer from these two eating disorders are predominately women. Individuals who suffer from eating disorders typically have the same view on body image; many have low self-esteem and

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