Understanding Eating Disorders Among College Women

One of the most common issues faced by college women nowadays is eating disorder. According to a study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health, there are over 5 million Americas who are suffering from eating disorders. According to the study, about 90% of those Americans who are suffering from eating disorders are women. The staggering number of women in the United States that are suffering from eating disorder is very alarming considering that 1 in 10 eating disorder patient would eventually die of starvation. According to experts, death resulting form eating disorder is significantly higher than any of those other psychological disorders. What is really alarming is that studies show that about 1/3 of the total number of college girls in the country are suffering from some kind of "disordered eating" habits.

Although studies show that the eating habits of most college girls do not actually qualify as eating disorders that would require medical help, such disordered eating habits could lead to severe eating disorders in the future. Note that most college ladies would often take on some severe dieting to achieve that ultra thin looks that is hyped by media as beautiful. Consequently, practice such as "binge-eating, the use of diet pills and laxatives to purge out the food that they have just eaten is very popular among college girls in the country.

Since peer pressure is so strong among college girls, those girls who are thought to be "over-weight" would often feel oblige to adhere to some strict diet that is comparable to some starvation regimen. There are times when college girls would skip too many meals in a day that they would end up feeling dizzy and fainting from lack of food. Such habit is actually counter-productive because studies show that when you deprive your body of food, it will compensate by reducing the metabolism process. This means that when a woman starts eating something again, her body will now metabolize the food so slowly that she will end up gaining more weight.

What really worst about the "starvation regimen" being practiced by many college girls in the country is that they tends to get worst overtime. The innocent dieting could lead to a severe eating disorder such a bulimia, which is characterized by recurrent binge-eating episodes, use of laxatives and diet pills and excessive exercise to prevent weight gain. Once a woman gets caught in the cycle, it would be very difficult for her to stop. In some cases, the cycle is not broken early enough to save the woman from literally starving herself to death.