Eating disorders are defined by abnormal eating habits that negatively affect an individual’s physical and mental health. Eating disorders may begin with an obsession with food, body shape or body weight. People suffering from eating disorders undergo a variety of symptoms like restricting the intake of food, extreme food binges, indulging in purging behaviours like vomiting or excessive exercising. Eating disorders lead to complex mental health conditions often needs guidance and intervention from psychological and medical experts. Factors like genetics, environment, culture, brain biology and personality traits, all seem to play an important role in people suffering from eating disorders.

The 3 major subtypes of eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating. An individual suffering from anorexia nervosa has a distorted body image i.e. they are excessively fat, even when they are actually highly thin individuals. These people often refuse to eat, exercise compulsively and other unusual habits. In bulimia nervosa, the individuals eat excessive amounts on food and then purge their bodies of the food. Lastly, people suffering from binge eating usually have frequent episodes of out-of-control eating. All of these eating disorders are very critical and cause severe mental health conditions and may lead to death in extreme cases. There is a lack of awareness of eating disorders and their prevalence in young childhood. It’s very important to assess and control the situation well in time to be able to help the person suffering from eating disorders.

This course on introduction to eating disorders will provide the learners of the course with an in-depth understanding of eating disorders. Lectures on the concept, etiology, prevalence, course, types of eating disorders, classification systems will be provided to the learners. Learners will gain knowledge of the current Indian scenario relating to eating disorders. The types of eating disorders will be taught in detail to help the learners to gain a clearer understanding of how to distinguish between the disorders and plan an effective intervention plan for the client. Discussions, assignments, case studies, will be a part of the course. The learners will equip themselves on how to accurately diagnose the eating disorders and the associated concerns, the comorbidities, differential diagnosis. This will help them to work on their skills as a good psychologist, in generating an effective and productive treatment plan.