Ted Audio Collective

This is the Ted Health Podcast. I'm Dr. Shoshana Ungerlater.

On today's show, Oniz Baji explains why eating disorders are so misunderstood and why

this makes them so difficult to treat. Oniz will walk us through common misconceptions.

For one, you can't tell if someone has an eating disorder simply by their weight.

And after the talk, we'll dig deeper into the prevalence of eating disorders,

why we should question our assumptions of who has an eating disorder, and what treatment options exist.

Oniz Baji is the first person who has an eating disorder.

Globally, about 10% of people will experience an eating disorder during their lifetime.

And yet, eating disorders are profoundly misunderstood.

Misconceptions about everything from symptoms to treatment

make it difficult to navigate an eating disorder or support someone you love as they do so.

So let's walk through what is and isn't true about eating disorders.

First, what is an eating disorder? Eating disorders are a range of psychiatric conditions

characterized by these main patterns of behaviour, restricting food intake,

binging or rapidly consuming large amounts of food, and purging or eliminating calories

through vomiting, laxatives, excessive exercise and other harmful means.

An eating disorder can involve any one or any combination of these behaviours.

For example, people living with alurexia usually restrict the amount of food they eat,

while bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by recurrent

binges and purges.

Importantly, these behaviours determine whether someone has an eating disorder.

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