In a new study coming out of Australia, researchers have found that a large percentage of women, nearly half of those studied, did not believe they had an eating disorder even though they had bulimic symptoms.
Bulimia is often thought of as the “binge and purge” type of eating disorder, but in reality other forms of bulimia exist that may not involve purging or binging specifically. Of the patients studied, the women who purged were six times more likely to recognize that they had a problem than women who didn’t purge but were involved in excessive exercise or strict calorie control instead. There are even related forms of the disease where patients may binge only (binge-eating disorder) or purge without binging (compensatory disorder).
Generally, it appears that women don’t think there’s a problem unless self-induced vomiting is involved. More education is obviously needed on the non-purging forms of bulimia, as well as eating disorders in general.
Author by Rigel Gregg
