Eating disorders. I want to tell you three things about them. Anorexia and Bulimia aren’t the only ones, they’re everywhere and we don’t know nearly enough about them.
Read on for some of the most obscure eating disorders that exist and you might discover you know someone who has ’em!
1. Anthropophagy
Anthropophagy is another term for cannibalism
Now, this is a pretty solid no-no in ‘civilised’ society, but there are remote tribes around the world that practise it. There is also a small percentage of people who live in modern societies who identify as cannibals and occasionally will seek out willing participants who will let them eat small fatty parts of their bodies.
2. Orthorexia
Orthorexics have an unhealthy obsession with eating only and very healthy foods
I know, it sounds like a pretty great condition, but it makes one cautious about organic and what they see as pure foods to such an extent that it can overtake their lives and impede on their eating habits.
3. Chewing And Spitting
A person suffering from this chews their food and spits it out to cut back on calories and fat intake
Another avatar of anorexia, this is for people who like food and don’t necessarily want to cut it out all together, but who also don’t want to feel the guilt of eating.
4. Pica
People who live with pica have an obsessive compulsive feeling to eat non-food items such as dirt, chalk, paint, soap, or even cigarette butts
Not only is pica an eating disorder, it is also a mental health issue.
5. Bigorexia or Muscle Dysmorphia
People suffering from it often do as much as they can to create abnormal muscle gain.
Sometimes called reverse anerexia nervosa, muscle dymorphia is the obsession that one isn’t muscular enough to meet their own or someone else’s standard of fitness, believing his or herself to be too skinny. Their diets are extremely limited and unhealthy for their sizes and workout routines.
6. Xylophagia
Imagine suffering from a compulsion to eat wood. That’s what xylophagics suffer from
Kids do often ingest such items, however an adult known to commonly ingest pencils, paper, or bark off trees can be diagnosed with Xylophagia.
7. Night Eating Syndrome
Night eating syndrome sufferers delay their food intake until the late evening, or have a habit of waking up in the middle of the night to eat
These people aren’t necessarily binge eaters, but at times believe that before they’re able to sleep, or get back to sleep, they have to eat something.
8. Trichophagia
People with trichophagia eat hair
In a severe case of the disorder, one has to undergo surgery to remove large hair ball blockages that get stuck in the intestines, causing major health issues while making it impossible for food to be digested.
9. Urophagia
The drinking of urine is diagnosed as urophagia
This doesn’t mean that a person drinks their own pee – they may drink others as well.
10. Geophagy
Geophagy sufferers have a preference for the taste of earth
They eat dirt, clay, chalk, and mud. The condition could cause serious infections because at times animal feces can be in any of those substances and people can become sick from parasites and bugs.
11. Coprophagia
Coprophagia describes people who eat feces
Yep, poop. This disorder is extremely rare in humans, but not impossible.
12. Dermatillomania
This is the eating of skin picked off from one’s body
A control disorder, Dermatillomania is a condition where a person repeatedly and almost continuously picks at their skin. Some people with dermatillomania go a step further and eat what they pick off, including dead skin and scabs.
13. Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Body dysmorphic disorder gives one a distorted view of the reality of themselves
While this disorder isn’t relegated specifically to diet, the effect can have an impact on someone’s eating habits. A morphed body image would lead one to take on diets and exercises that their body cannot handle.
14. Anorexia Athletica
A person with anorexia athletica is obsessed with compulsive exercising
These people may look as if they love all things fitness, but the underlying theme between them and a person who likes to hit the gym frequently is that it has a negative impact on their day to day activities, work, and relationships.
15. Selective Eating Disorder
This can sometimes lead people to thinking that it’s just a case of someone being a ‘picky eater’
However, many suffering with SED believe that there is only a finite amount of foods that they can eat. “People who are picky aren’t doing this just to be stubborn,” said eating researcher Nancy Zucker of Duke University, to Live Science. “Extremely picky eaters experience food differently than the rest of us.”
16. Binge-Eating Disorder
This is an eating disorder characterised by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food (often very quickly and to the point of discomfort)
Binges are usually accompanied by a feeling of a loss of control, shame, distress or guilt afterwards.
