An insight into eating disorders: types, diagnosis and treatment

The global prevalence of patients affected by eating disorders is increasing in the world, particularly in Westernised countries, placing a considerable strain for families and health care systems. In this thesis, the topic of eating disorders will be studied in detail, analysing the causes, the types and strategies available for prevention and treatment. A focus will be, in particular, on Italy where, despite the presence of several specialized centres of excellence, available resources remain insufficient to effectively address what some researchers have defined an epidemic problem. The examination of the centres across Italy reveals differences among regions, forcing families to face high costs and discomfort, because in many cases they must go from Southern Italy to Northern Italy. As it will be discussed in the following pages, there are many factors, for example environmental, family and social ones that can provoke the onset of an eating disorder. In the last chapters, the choice has been to analyse in detail the role of the nutritionist, the complications of eating disorders and the role of sport: the nutritionist is one of the components of the multidisciplinary team and plays a fundamental role in the treatment of patients, with the aim to re-stabilize the correct introduction of food. Eating disorders are associated with a wide range of complications that vary according to the specific type of disorder and, in the most severe cases, they can be life-threatening. Finally, the relationship between sport and eating disorders is characterised by a degree of ambivalence: it is surely fundamental in people’s lives to do physical activity, but some types of sport (dance in the first place) can promote the presence of an eating disorder, especially when instructors make inappropriate comments that can hurt young people.