Current Pet Peeve.

Okay, now hear me out on this disclaimer: I'm not a medical professional, far from it, I'm just a kid. I'm not claiming to know it all. I have had experience with these disorders (and I'm not saying I did at a personal--meaning myself--level necessarily).

My current pet peeve is the stories that have anorexia nervosa (anorexia) or bulimia nervosa (bulimia)/anorexic or bulimic characters. I have no pet peeve that their characters have a disorder, I actually adore that. I love people who are raising awareness of these disorders. They need to be put out there.

But they need to be put out there right.

Unfortunately, if you've never had it/had a friend with it/had experience with it personally or researched it, anorexia is really difficult to understand in the sense that there's two types.

And one of them is purging type.

And, if you don't know the difference, purging type can look exactly like bulimia.

The truth is, and I'm saying this in the most simplified way I can (I can use nonsense words that won't make sense, and hardly make sense to me had I not known people to have these disorders).

Purging-type anorexics:
A. Restriction of energy intake relative to requirements leading to a significantly low body weight in the context of age, sex, developmental trajectory, and physical health. Significantly low weight is defined as a weight that is less than minimally normal, or, for children and adolescents, less than that minimally expected.

B. Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, or persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain, even though at a significantly low weight.

C. Disturbance in the way in which one's body weight or shape is experienced, undue influence of body weight or shape on self-evaluation, or persistent lack of recognition of the seriousness of the current low body weight.
(That's from the new DSM-V rules)

And the purging types purge because they eat a small amount that they feel guilty for and then throw up. As a general rule, anorexics are underweight.

Bulimics:

A. Recurrent episodes of binge eating. An episode of binge eating is characterized by both of the following:

(1) Eating, in a discrete period of time (e.g., within any 2-hour period), an amount of food that is definitely larger than most people would eat during a similar period of time under similar circumstances

(2) A sense of lack of control over eating during the episode (e.g., a feeling that one cannot stop eating or control what or how much one is eating)

B. Recurrent inappropriate compensatory behaviors in order to prevent weight gain, such as self-induced vomiting; misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or other medications, fasting; or excessive exercise.

C. The binge eating and inappropriate compensatory behaviors both occur, on average, at least once per week for 3 months.

D. Self-evaluation is unduly influenced by body shape and weight.

E. The disturbance does not occur exclusively during episodes of Anorexia Nervosa.
(Also from DSM-V) ^And that last rule means it can't be under the circumstances of anorexic behaviour. If you're anorexic, you can't have bulimia. And, generally, bulimics aren't underweight. They're usually average or slightly over.

Anorexics are meticulous about eating habits and anorexia can be difficult to distinguish from BDD (something else entirely, don't worry about it).

That's my rant XD I'm done.