Kofi was a 39 year old civil engineer with a beautiful wife and daughter. His mum who lived in Kumasi decided to pay her son a visit. Kofi’s wife on wanting to bond with her mother in-law decided to go and pick her up from the airport. On their way back home, their car crushed into a truck and they both died. Upon hearing this tragic news, Kofi fell into severe depression. He couldn’t sleep nor work. He felt himself gradually losing control of his life. To cope, he started binge-eating; he ate throughout the day with no planned meal time. He developed obesity as a result of his eating behavior and later died of a heart attack leaving his daughter to fend for herself.
Symptoms: People with this disorder eat continuously through the day with no planned meal time. Others engage in discrete binges of large amounts of food often in response to stress and to feelings of anxiety and depression. People with binge-eating disorder often are significantly overweight and say they are disgusted with their bodies and ashamed of bingeing. They typically have a history in frequent dieting , membership in weight-loss programs and family obesity.
Causes: it is said to run in families; genes carry a general risk for eating disorders rather than a specific risk for one type of eating disorder. The hypothalamus plays a central role in regulating eating and is implicated in the disordered eating behaviors. An Imbalance of neurochemicals in the brain can also cause this eating disorder. Social factors such as the loss of a loved one also plays a role in this disorder. Some disorders such as depression and anxiety can also predispose a person to the binge-eating disorder.
MentalMondays by Akwama
MentalMondays by Akwama 