Eating Disorders are psychiatric disorders indicated in DSM V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). They are characterized by the establishment of an unhealthy relationship with food and are deadly diseases. Food for humans fulfills a basic biological function: without food, our bodies cannot function properly. However, food also fulfills a social function, and it is that the function of "eating" is almost always inscribed in an affective framework. When feeding the infant, the mother not only gives her milk, but also invests it with affection in the form of words, looks, caresses that make this experience much more profound than a single instinctive act. In this way our relationship with food begins, in this way it inscribes us in the world. In eating disorders, the relationship with food is used as an unconscious means to try to regulate emotions. In this way, dynamics of restriction, purge or over intake will be used in an attempt to express aggression and rejection towards the external world, through destroying the body itself. There are several types of eating disorders, to the most well-known, anorexia and bulimia (also affectionately called among the patients who suffer from them Ana and Mia), are added Binge Eating Disorder, Pica, Rumination Disorder, Avoidance / Food Restriction Disorder and unspecified ones.
Each of them expresses different intrapsychic dynamics and their meaning lies in the personal history of each subject. Having said this, there are general tables that are consistently presented in the epigenesis of these disorders. Obesity or overweight in the family, overprotective and anxious parents or guardians or the extreme distant and evasive ones, unrealistic expectations about body image, little or no development of critical thinking, using food as a reward / punishment, among others, are family dynamics that we can frequently find in patients with eating disorders. From the Transgenerational factors (Psychogenealogy) we sometimes find histories of famines or lack of food in traumatic circumstances, antecedents of physically deteriorating diseases as well as ambivalent mothers and fathers. There are warning centers that can indicate that an eating disorder is occurring, for example, constant and intense weight loss or gain, intake of laxatives or weight loss pills, loss of appetite, excessive playing with food, constant talk about the corporal image or diets. However, the diagnosis of this type of disorders must be made by an expert, as well as the definition of a treatment which in almost all cases needs to be multidisciplinary, including Nutrition and Psychiatry. The prognosis for these patients varies, however the recovery process is almost always long with high relapse rates.
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