Anorexia and bulimia are-along with obesity-the most renowned eating disorders, with a clear and precise common denominator: the unbridled pursuit of thinness as a means to achieve success and social acceptance.

But .. “That differ in both diseases? In the case of anorexia is based on an obsessive search for thinning by progressively restricted diet. There is a distortion of perception of own body. Bulimia, in contrast, is the overeating that then try to compensate for abnormal behaviors such as vomiting, abusing laxatives and diuretics, intermittent or restrictive diets, which turns into a habit that changes the behavior of the sick person.

Who suffer them share a basic psychological problem: low self-esteem, insecurity, anxiety and so on. These are generally introverted people who tend to isolate themselves from the rest.

The figures speak for themselves: in the last ten years the increase in the number of people affected by anorexia and bulimia has been rampant. Today, in developed countries, eating disorders affect about one in every 200 young people between 12 and 14 years and although adolescents remain the group most affected, men, mature women and children under Starting 12 years to join the list of victims who suffer from these disorders.

In Western society and especially in Spanish, eating is a social act. It is eaten as a group and how each one consumes any food defines the different cultural groups. It is through the food by an act of social communication and there is a process of cohesion and group identification.

Also, as you know, many years ago that talks about these diseases and the models of beauty are being promoted as the major responsible.

It is regrettable to see how human beings receive thousands of advertising messages a day with a single message: thinness equals happiness and success, what gives: body dissatisfaction and staff. Be discriminated against for being fat is common. This becomes potentially dangerous especially in the case of adolescents, with the importance that implies for them “fit in” and conform to social standards.

In relation to the aesthetic is alarming that more and more teens turning to surgery and from an increasingly early ages, conducted internally by a desire for recognition of social and peer group. They feel ugly or insecure if they are not like those models on TV or in magazines … all identified with an image.

Both in the case of anorexia and bulimia in, it should be clear that the problem is not food, but the way in which the individual is valued and perceives itself. So we are talking about a mental health problem that is treatable and that we must try to prevent. The accepted one is that and what is the real key to staying healthy externally and internally.