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"The end of last year was terrible. I washed my hair on Christmas Eve and my face on Jan. 6th. Of course, I did not leave my house, but instead, slept all day. I looked extremely messy. I felt relaxed although I could do nothing but eat, vomit, and sleep."
This writing was posted on the homepage of "Heart and Heart," a clinic for eating disorders, by a person suffering from bulimia. Another patient with an eating disorder wrote: "Since puberty, I wanted to rid myself from this dreadful disease. It is very painful that I lost the will to live." Such letters are easily found on web pages and Internet cafes dealing with diet disorder.
Is this due to excessive pressure for a false notion of "a perfect, ideal body figure" and diet? Patients with eating disorder such as bulimia and anorexia are increasing in number that now patients must make an appointment just to see a doctor. A diet clinic in Seoul is known to have treated 20 patients per day. Internet cafes for people with eating disorder have rose in number: the Daum café "Beauty People" has about 3,800 members and "FREEBEAUTY-LOVEME" has 1,200 members.
Psychiatrist Lee Min-su of the Korea University Anam Hospital said that most people deny the fact that they are sick and thus, less than one percent comes in for a medical examination. It is reported in the academic world that four to five percent of women in their 20s have eating disorders.
"Heart and Heart" clinic superintendent Lee Jeong-hyun said that in the past, eating disorder mostly occurred among people in late teen years through early 30s, and that female patients outnumbered male patients. Contradicting this, Lee said, today a great number of single men, middle-aged women and even elementary school students suffer from eating disorders. The current trend of people wanting a "perfect body figure" has triggered the dramatic rise in the number of people with eating disorders.
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Many people are aware that intensive diet could lead to eating disorders, yet doctors emphasize that serious anorexia and bulimia are far more dangerous diseases that could lead to death.
Anorexia leads to severe deficiencies in nutrition, dehydration, amenorrhea in women (and sexual apathy in the case for men), osteoporosis, malfunction of kidneys and heart, atrophy of ovary and uterus, and at most, contraction of the cerebrum. In case of bulimia, constant overeating and vomiting damage the stomach and the esophagus. An imbalance of electrolytes in the body and excessive stomach acid also accompany the eating disorder. In serious cases where the patient constantly throws up stomach acid, the esophagus could tear easily, not to mention the corrosion of tooth enamel.
Kang Hui-chang, chief of the Specialist Clinics in Psychiatry, said that anorexia and bulimia might lead to serious depression, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder or anxiety disorders which could possibly drive a patient to commit suicide or murder. Kang added that help from a psychiatrist is a must. Professor Lee Min-su said that, generally, the number of patients with bulimia is five times greater in number than patients suffering from anorexia, but that treating anorexia is far more difficult than bulimia. Anorexia is likely to reoccur after treatment and in serious cases, the death rate could range between five and 18 percent according to foreign scholars, Lee said.
(Lim Ho-jun, hjlim@chosun.com )
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