Causes
The causes of bulimia are related to psychological issues such as the feeling of lack of control. The persons suffering from bulimia think they have control over their life if they control their eating even though that means eating in excess especially when they feel stressed or are very upset. They try to hide their condition, they will lose control after a while over their binging (consuming a great amount of food very fast) and purging (“cleaning” their insides by vomiting, pills etc). The addiction to such behavior is very dangerous and often causes the recovery to be very hard as often the patients will gain weight due to the fact that they are still eating a lot but they no longer purge. The anxiety the patients are feeling in this stage of the recovery may lead them back to bulimia.
A high rate of bulimics is noticeable in spheres involving body shape and the thinness of it, such as modeling, ballet, dancing, gymnastics, athletics, cheerleading, acting, figure skating etc where the individuals are under a constant pressure from their trainers to keep their body in a certain form and under a certain weight. The Caucasians are found to be more sensitive to bulimia.
A possible cause of bulimia may be the high level of testosterone and the low level of estrogen. This can be regulated by taking contraceptive pills to reduce the desire for fat and sugar.
Other causes of bulimia and risk factors are:
- Having a bad body image; this is often cause by the present culture that praise thinness and states that a thin body is the ideal of beauty. This often leads to a certain social pressure for the common individuals that embrace this ideal.
- A number of psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression, abuse of substances, perfectionism, obsessive compulsive disorder (known as OCD), lack of control over anger and other impulses, different mental illnesses.
- A specific trauma in one’s life, such as a physical or mental abuse, sexual abuse, rape etc; other stressful event such as a painful brake up or parents divorce, a difficult exam etc.
- Some people may actually have a biological predisposition to bulimia nervosa or have a problem with some certain chemicals in the brain that are responsible for the amount of food they eat.
- Professional pressures for athletes, dancers, models that are under constant pressure to stay thin.
- The family environment has also an important role. One is at a higher risk for developing bulimia if one has a relative or parents that are bulimics. The reason is that they will often criticize their or the child’s body as it is growing up therefore influencing him or her into becoming a bulimic person.
- Even the rigors of a diet may lead to the development of bulimia.
