EATING DISORDERS
A. Feeding Disorders
When it comes to eating, there are a lot of connections between culture, genetics,
physiology, preferences, and psychological attitudes. Since 25,000 B.C., when the oldest
known figure of a human was carved out of limestone, people have had ideas about what
an ideal body looks like. Hippocrates and Galen in ancient Greece saw a link between
being overweight and getting sick, so they used food and exercise to treat obesity. In
ancient Rome, upper-class women starved themselves to appear thin, but it wasn't until
the Middle Ages that anorexia was first described in medical books. By the late 19th
century, eating problems were regarded as worthy of medical diagnosis and treatment.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-
5) combines feeding and eating disorders. Until recently, feeding disorders were thought
of as a group of illnesses that were usually first noticed when the person was a baby, a
child, or a teenager. Nevertheless, since feeding disorders may affect people of all ages,
the three most prevalent feeding disorders are pica, rumination disorder, and avoidant or
restrictive food intake disorder. According to Bryant-Waugh et al. (2010), some of the
types of eating problems seen in clinics and other mental health settings include delayed
or absent development of feeding or eating skills, difficulty managing or tolerating fluids
or foodstuffs, reluctance to eat based on taste, texture, and other sensory factors, lack of
appetite or interest in food, and utilizing feeding behaviors to comfort, self-soothe, or
self-stimulate.
B. PICA
PICA is an eating disorder in which the individual consumes non-food items.
Clay, cornstarch, charcoal, paste, newspaper, coffee grounds, paint chips, and blackboard
chalk are common ingredients. Eating nonnutritive substances might start in infancy,
adolescence, or maturity. Pica is a widespread habit that is more prevalent in developing
nations, although its prevalence estimates are unclear. It is more prevalent among the
poor than among the wealthy, among blacks than among whites, among pregnant women
