Healthier Weight Management
Clinical hypnotherapy can help you establish a
better relationship with the food you eat and
the reasons you eat it
Many of us have a slightly odd relationship with food and in many ways we pass on mixed messages about food to younger generations. Additionally, we now live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by images of 'beautiful people' and the media - telling us we must all be thin - equating thinness with sucess. It is worrying that many children of 11 and less are on diets and openly discuss dieting and surgery as ways of controlling their weight. Most people who go onto the ocassional diet are perfectly healthy mentally and physically and do not have any kind of eating disorder.
Eating disorders often tend to be an expression of deep seated issues and are often used to block out painful feelings.
Eating disorders are increasing, with the UK having a significant problem. Most UK GPs will have several patients with an eating disorder.
About 1 in 10 people who have an eating disorder are male.
Anorexia nervosa
- Anorexics restrict the amount they eat and drink - often to dangerous levels.
- The average age of onset for anorexia nervosa has been reported to be between 16.6 and 18.3 years.
- Anorexics often come from families where there is not much communication but where there is considerable pressure to perform well or to 'be perfect'.
- In anorexia there is a refusal to maintain weight at a normal level.
- Anorexics have an intense and growing fear of gaining weight or of becoming fat.
- As time goes by anorexics loses a proper perspective or their own weight frequently believing that they are much bigger than reality.
- Anorexic girls can become so seriously undernourished that their periods stop and downy hair appears on their bodies.
- Anorexics frequently have mood swings.
- Anorexics will often have dizzy or fainting spells and will usually feel cold.
Bulimia Nervosa
- A bulimic has an uncontrollable urge to eat vast amounts of food.
- Bulimics have an emotional hunger that cannot be satisfied.
- Bulimics binge then vomit, or use laxatives or diuretics, as a means of controlling weight.
- Bulimics are frequently of normal weight.
- Bulimics often suffer from mood swings.
- Bulimics sometimes have abrasions on the back of one hand. This happens because their teeth graze that hand whenever they stick their fingers down their throat to induce vomiting. This tell-tale sign can be useful for friends, parents or doctors in identifying the problem.
- Bulimics frequently have sore throats because of their constant vomiting. This again is a symptom that may help doctors identify the problem of bulimia in their patients.
- Bulimics develop problems with tooth decay - this is because of the acid in their vomit constantly washing over their teeth. Dentists are often the first people to spot this problem and sometimes confront the bulimic with their suspicions and encourage them to seek treatment.
- Bulimics eat to gain emotional satisfaction but as they start to feel full they are overcome by feelings of guilt and shame.
- In severe cases the bulimic can develop dangerously low levels of essential minerals in the body that can badly affect - sometimes fatally - the vital organs.
- Occasionally severe bulimia can lead to heart attacks.
Compulsive/Binge-Eating
- Compulsive eaters indulge in regular but episodic over-eating of large amounts of food that are perceived to be fattening.
They will:
- think obsessionally about food and weight
- indulge secretly
- have a sense or feeling of being out of control but will be able to delay the binge until alone
- eat until they feel uncomfortably full
- suffer guilt and remorse after binge eating in particular
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