To many people, eating a meal takes a small portion of their day. But to those who struggle with an eating disorder, the most basic act of eating is torture. Eating disorders do not only dismantle your relationship with food, but they deform how you treat your body. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in the US defined eating disorders as “serious and often fatal illnesses that are associated with severe disturbances in people’s eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions. Preoccupation with food, body weight, and shape may also signal an eating disorder.” The eating disorder first comes as a wary visitor to individuals. A war is waged between their body and their thoughts. As time passes and the eating disorder further develops, it becomes a regular visitor. It often becomes a perceived source of comfort, it sits and feeds off of a person’s negative perceptions — always takes, and never gives. Untick the Boxes The American Psychiatric Association highlighted the categories of eating disorders: “types of eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, other specified feeding and eating disorder,…
