Bulimia Nervosa

What is it exactly?• Bulimia nervosa is an eating

disorder in which a person binges and purges. The person may eat a lot of food at once and then try to get rid of the food by vomiting, using laxatives, or sometimes over-exercising.

• I am too fat!

• No one likes me cause• I am too big!

• I can’t believe I got this big!

How can you tell who has it?

• Exercising for hours • Eating until painfully full

• Going to the bathroom during meals • Loss of control over eating, with guilt and shame

• Body weight that goes up and down • Constipation, diarrhea, nausea, gas, abdominal

pain • Dehydration

• Missed periods or lack of menstrual periods • Damaged tooth enamel

• Bad breath • Sore throat or mouth sores

• Depression

• I am not depressed, I just don’t have self confidence and the only way that I can get it is if I keep losing weight like this. This is not hurting me, its helping me!

Are you at risk??

• The people who are most at risk are :• White, middle-class women (mostly teenagers

and college students) • People with a family history of mood disorders

and substance abuse • People with low self-esteem

• Every girl at school is so much skinner than me and I have to look like them. No boys will date me if I am labeled the “fat girl” I have to

lose weight and fast. Throwing it up is the only way that I can lose the

weight I want to quickly. I am going to be a sexy babe at prom whether it

kills me or not.

Is there anyone who can help me?• There are trained professionals

who are trained and skilled to coach you and help you get

back to being healthy. • If worse comes to worse, you

always have your supportive family members and friends.

They will support you more than you know if you give them

a chance.

• Why does he think I am pretty when I know I am fat?

• Can he not see what I see?

• What is wrong with him? He needs to see I am fat and need to lose tons of weight.

How can you ask your friends if they have it or

not?• Do NOT go up to them and just ask.

Have “proof” or “reason for concern” before you confront them

• Ask them kindly in a way that they can say no. they might not feel comfortable telling anyone

• I cant go to school anymore. Everyone judges me.

• The popular girls point and call me the fat b****h.

• • I am so alone and no one understand

me so why even care anymore.

What can I do for my friends with it?

• Be there for them• Support them• Try to understand them• Do NOT judge them• LISTEN

• I am so fat, I have a muffin top that goes over my jeans. I am too fat for these jeans. Never are these jeans too small for me!

• I have to be a size 0 by prom or else I will die!!!

What are the most common ways to become bulimic?

• It is not something that happens overnight. It takes

time and the will power of the person doing it for it to

take affect. The person have to forcefully make their body

get rid of their food. After a few months though, your

body starts reacting the way you trained it to even without you forcefully

causing yourself to throw up. Your body learns what you

teach it.

• Why does no one ever call me beautiful?

• How come guys wait til after I lose weight to even notice me?

• I have to lose weight to be called beautiful and to get out of the shadows and into the spot light

Can you prevent it?

• YES• Bulimia is 100% preventable. You

bring it upon yourself. It is not a disease that you can catch.

• My throat burns, but I cant tell anyone. I will just have cough drops and everything will be fine.

• My teeth are getting weaker. Its harder to chew. Oh well, its worth it.

How long does it take for people to recover?

• The recovery time dependson each individual person

*for many it can take up to2 years before they can

Eat and keep down threeWhole meals a day.

The first steps of recovery:

• 1) Confess that you have a problem• 2) Get help!• 3) Find a support group!• 4) Don’t look back

• Freshman year of high school comes with new challenges and obstacles no one ever dreams of. I did not go to high school thinking I would become bulimic. It was such a gradual process that I never truly recognized it until it was almost too late. It started with the simple thought, “I am FAT!” This thought turned into “I am not skinny like all the other girls.” These thoughts became more frequent and progressed into “The only way I can be happy and have friends is to lose weight, and fast.” Along with these thoughts came the feelings of worthlessness, doubt, hatred, and depression. I hated looking at myself because all I saw was fat. I attempted to diet but it didn’t work fast enough for the results I wanted. I had to find another way.

• My best friend, at that time, told me how she lost weight. She said to eat a meal, let your body think it’s full, then throw it up so the food wont make you gain weight. I was desperate and so I tried it. Two weeks after I started I was minus 15 pounds and starving. I got in the mind set that food was the enemy. I continued down that path for the rest of my freshman year and the result was losing over 80 pounds. I finally had the “perfect” body but was not truly happy. I didn’t understand it.

• That summer my dad forced me to go on the youth group choir tour down to New Orleans even I wanted nothing to do with it. I had very few friends that were going on the trip and I thought they didn’t like me because I was fat. The Tuesday night of that trip the speaker told us to pull out our bibles and read Ecclesiastes 3:11a. “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” That verse hit me like a truck. God called me beautiful, ME! No one, let along the person who created me, had called me beautiful like that. Then I read Psalm 139:14 which states, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” This verse brought tears to my eyes. Regret filled my entire body as I realized all the destruction I had done to God’s artwork, to me. My friends noticed me crying and pulled me aside. I let out all the regret and hurt I felt to them. Their response was simply, “You are beautiful just the way you are.” They answered al my questions about how and why God made us; Right then and there I accepted God into my heart and into my life. Immediately I noticed a change in myself. I had am overwhelming sense of peace and the worry of my weight went away gradually.

• As the weeks passed by I became happy again and lived for God instead of others. Over the next months I got deep in the word and learned more and more about God; the person who first called me beautiful. God has been with me every step of the way and has given me the strength to throw away the scale. The building blocks of my recovery are reading the word constantly and being around fellow Christians instead of the people who negatively influence me. I am happy with my appearance ad God has given me the confidence to feel beautiful. When you feel beautiful people can see it. My daily goal is to glorify God by letting my inner beauty shine. My inner beauty is my true beauty and in the end it’s the only one that matter to my Father. I am beautiful in His eyes, and that’s all that matters.

• -The student’s, who wrote this project, true story. I will remain anonymous.. But just know this is my true story and these use to be my feelings about life.