Introduction – Eating Disorder (Nursing)

00:00 Let's take a look at eating disorders now.

00:03 Eating disorders are a form of chronic illnesses that are associated with other mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.

00:15 Anorexia, or the absence of all appetite is a psychiatric disorder that leads to self starvation and weight loss that is life threatening.

00:28 I will let you know that at one point I had a patient.

00:32 I had not met her in person. Her mom had called me.

00:37 They were having problems at home. She was on a cheer team.

00:42 She had become very obsessive about her weight, not wanting to eat.

00:47 Would eat a little bit of dinner and take the rest to her room.

00:50 And finally, she was losing so much weight that it really worried her mom. They went to a cheer competition.

00:59 And when they came back, her mom called me from the airport and brought her directly to my office.

01:05 This young lady was about 5 foot 3.

01:08 And if she weighed 70 pounds, that was a light.

01:12 I looked at her and I asked her some very clear questions.

01:18 And she told me she couldn't eat a full gummy bear that if she ate a tiny bite of the ear of a gummy bear, you know, we're talking gummy bear, she would start to feel nauseous and full.

01:32 I had that child brought from my house, straight to the emergency room.

01:37 She had had arrhythmias.

01:39 All of her metabolic results were completely off, and she was near death.

01:47 And yet, this disease is so chronic, that families don't understand that the person who has an eating disorder might just be starving themselves to death.

02:03 There are three disorders that are eating disorders.

02:08 One is anorexia nervosa.

02:10 One is bulimia nervosa.

02:13 And the other is the Binge-eating disorder.