Eating Dissorders in Women After Age 30

“I hate the way I look!” I am so fat!” I hate looking in the mirror!” “I used to be so thin, why can’t I look like I did when I was 20?” These phrases are all too familiar to someone who has an eating disorder. Eating disorders generally affect women in their teens to mid 20’s. What happens when a woman develops an eating disorder after age 30 or continues to face this terrible illness that has affected her since adolescence.

To fully understand what an eating disorder is, it is important to know the different types of eating disorders. Eating disorders are generally categorized as Bulimia Nervosa, Anorexia Nervosa and Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified. Eating disorders are devastating behavioral dysfunctions brought on by an array of factors. Emotional and personality disorders, family pressures, possible genetic or biologic susceptibility, and a culture where there is an obsession with thinness are all contributing factors to this consuming disease (noah.cuny.edu).

Bulimia Nervosa is more common than anorexia and works on a cycle of bingeing, eating an enormous amount of food, and then forcibly eliminating the food, identified as the act of purging. The c

Anorexia Nervosa was first defined as a medical problem in 1873. An increase in the number of cases appears to have started around 20 years ago. Postwar years brought an increasing number of adolescent female patients who used appetite and eating as emotional instruments much as they had in early childhood (Brumberg 11). The physical aspects of anorexia is starvation and emaciation which can be accomplished by severe dieting or by purging. In January 1983, pop singer Karen Carpenter died of heart failure associated with low serum potassium – a consequence of prolonged starvation. Her death fueled interest in the disease (15).

I reached my goal right before my wedding. Unfortunately, that was not good enough. I got married in March 1992, and for the next year and a half, I struggled with my new “weight obsession.” I exercised every day for two hours, counted calories and weighed myself morning and night. My friends told me how “good” I looked. People were turning their heads and that “high” got even higher. My physical appearance was the only thing I could control in my life. Everything else in my life was out of control. I was not where I wanted to be geographically, financially, spiritually and emotionally. The only thing I felt in control of was my weight.

Today, eight million women suffer from eating disorders. Almost nine in ten people with eating disorders (86%) report the onset of their illness occurring by age 20. Three in four (77%) report that the duration of their illness ranges from one to 15 years. Fifty-three percent of 20 year-old-women feel they are fat. Eighty-four percent of adult women wish to weigh less (dietfreesolution.com).

In her book, The Secret Language of Eating Disorders, Peggy Claude Pierre has coined the term “Confirmed Negativity Condition.” She defines it as complex thought processes that plague the minds of those with eating disorders. Other possible self-negating manifestations of CNC may include depression, agoraphobia, panic attacks or obsessive-compulsive disorder. She also states that the eating disorder is the symptom; CNC is the affliction we must cure (36).

The term Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified, was established to define eating disorders not specifically defined as anorexia or bulimia. This category includes binge

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