IN my experience, I’ve hardly ever seen or heard people mention the concept of eating disorders as a mental illness in Guyana. It’s either you eat too much, so you’re glutenous, or you eat too little, and you’re picky. Eating disorders have been recognised by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) since the 1980s. Right now, there are eight categories of feeding and eating disorders—Pica, Rumination Disorder, Bulimia Nervosa (BN), Anorexia Nervosa (AN), Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), Binge Eating Disorder (BED), Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED) and Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorder (UFED).

Anorexia Nervosa is when someone tries to control their weight by not eating enough food or/and exercising too much. Bulimia is when someone loses control of their food intake and then takes drastic action to avoid excessive weight. Binge Eating Disorder is when someone eats large quantities of food until they feel uncomfortably full. Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder is when someone’s symptoms do not fit into a specified category of eating disorder, yet their eating patterns still disrupt their everyday lives. Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder is when someone avoids specific foods and/or limits how much they eat. There are eight recognised categories and yet still so many persons in Guyana are suffering daily within these various categories. They are unaware of it because there is little to no awareness to educate people on it.

Eating disorders affect 9 percent of the world’s population. According to experts, a person can also experience more than one category of disorders at a time. One can also experience a shift in their disorder, from one to the next, over time. Eating disorders are mental health conditions. Eating disorders can disrupt your physical, social or psychological functioning. It’s not just something you need to “get over” or something one can recover with just a lifestyle change. It is not a choice of vanity, either. It is a mental illness that is caused by deep, underlying genetic and biopsychosocial factors that occurred during childhood. Anyone living with an eating disorder needs to receive care and treatment from multiple professionals, such as — a therapist/counsellor, medical doctor and nutritionist or dietitian.

It goes beyond eating too much or too little. Someone who is thought to be overweight may have indications of physical health issues such as hypertension or diabetes. Whereas someone who is underweight may have a lack of nutrition in their body. In severe cases, the person affected by it may even be treated for hallucinations or depressive thoughts because how they see their body or sense of self is not the reality. Eating disorders can develop throughout childhood. When that child takes those very eating patterns into their teenage years, parents may pass it off as another “phase”. For young girls especially, not eating enough may be deemed as a teenage girl just looking to maintain her bodily appearance and physique. Or, a child may be blamed for overeating when it is the parent’s responsibility to ensure that child receives the help they need. It is something that can be treated from an early age to help improve the lives of those very children without them having to grow up believing something is wrong with them for having an untreated mental illness that is blamed on them.

If you or anyone you know develop eating patterns that make you drastically lose weight, eating very slowly or very quickly, avoiding eating with others, have extreme exercising habits or lying about their food portion sizes—then you should seek professional help or advice from a doctor or therapist.