Eating Disorders Counselling & Therapist Canberra Australian Capital Territory

Happy Peeps Eating Disorders Counselling & Therapist Canberra provides support to adults and children with eating disorders, a serious mental health disorder, and illness or psychological condition.

Practitioners support people who have eating disorders including, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and orthorexia Nervosa by helping them to cope and recover to optimum daily functioning.

What are the signs of an Eating Disorder?

• obsession with dieting by counting calories and skipping meals
• sudden weight loss
• obsession with body weight
• distorted body image (believing they look fat when clearly they are very thin)
• over-exercising
• large amounts of food going missing or being hidden in other rooms
• evidence of vomiting or laxative use (frequent trips to the toilet, especially after meal time)
• feeling fatigue all the time
• females having no menstrual period

Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia Nervosa is the persistent restriction of energy intake, intense fear of gaining weight when often they are underweight, starved and malnourished and disturbance in self-perceived weight or shape. People may use food and weight to control areas of their life that they feel are out of control and use this as a way of expressing complex internalised emotions. They often lose a lot of weight in a short period of time and have disturbed body images of themselves and believe their appearance and look is overweight. People with eating disorders often restrict the amount and type of food and avoid carbohydrates and fats, count calories, skip meals and have obsessive rules and thinking about food. They may even undertake an excessive exercise routine on a regular basis even though they are not well. Some people restrict intake and other enter into binge eating and purging.

Binge Eating Disorder

The disorder is frequent episodes of binge eating and the consumption of large amounts of food in a short period of time, however they do not generally purge or vomit after eating but may not eat for a long period of time. Binge Eaters generally eat very quickly and often eat when they are not hungry and continue to eat when they are full. The often feel guilt or shame around the way the food has been eaten. This pattern of behaviour often occurs at times of anger, stress, boredom and distress and at times when trying to cope with challenging emotions. Binge eaters are often secretive about food and often hide food, take many of one time of food and choose to eat alone.

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia Nervosa is when people binge-eat by eating large amounts of food in a short period of time and then purge by taking laxatives or forcing themselves to vomit. They generally have a normal weight range however often have anxiety and depression and increased risks of self-harm and suicide.

Orthorexia Nervosa

This disorder is an obsession with pure and healthy eating and the person is so fixated on health eating they damage their own well-being by avoiding food they believe to be harmful. They are often obsessed with maintaining the perfect diet rather than ideal weight. Studies suggest orthorexia may be linked with obsessive-compulsive disorder.