People with bulimia nervosa do two things. First, they eat. Second, they work very hard to get rid of what they have eaten.
People with bulimia binge eat. That is, in a small amount of time they eat copious amounts of food, much more than an average person would eat in an equivalent amount of time. They often lose control over their eating, and are unable to stop until the food is gone.
When the food is gone, guilt over the consumption appears and they have to get rid of the evidence. So a person with bulimia will then vomit, or use laxatives, diuretics, enemas or other medications. Sometimes they choose to fast for days in response to a particularly bad binge. Others will exercise excessively. But the goal is always the same — to not absorb or to burn off any of the calories that were consumed in the binge.
Unlike people with anorexia nervosa, you cannot readily identify people with bulimia based on their weight and public eating behavior. Often body weights hover around the average range, although one might see remarkable weight fluctuations in a person.
People with bulimia are often ashamed of their eating problems and attempt to conceal their symptoms. Bingeing and purging behavior is often quite secretive, and one’s obvious, or public, eating patterns vary from being relatively “normal” to being highly restrictive.
Typically people with bulimia are very body and weight conscious and are frequently dieting. They place excessive emphasis on body weight and shape in their self-evaluation. Often these factors are the most important ones for them in determining self-esteem.
People with bulimia are generally ashamed of their behavior and spend a lot of time thinking about food. Some might even call it a food obsession, given how much of their waking energy is spent on thoughts of food. A person with bulimia is rarely happy or satisfied with their relationship with food, or their own self image. They believe themselves to be uglier and having more weight than they usually are.
Treatment for bulimia is usually psychotherapy focused on helping a person gain a healthier relationship with eating, and an improved, realistic self-image of themselves.
Specific Symptoms of Bulimia
So what are the specific symptoms of bulimia? You can check out the symptoms of bulimia that professionals use to make a bulimia nervosa diagnosis.
