From the author: Why are diets so often ineffective? What do anorexics and morbidly obese people have in common? How can you tell if you have an eating disorder? And finally, what to do with all this? A huge problem in modern society is, on the one hand, the widespread ideal of thinness and over-concern with issues of appearance and weight, on the other hand, a lack of understanding that eating disorders are really a disease, a disorder, and a person suffering from them requires the help of qualified specialists. And very often, instead, he only hears “get yourself together, you rag, and just stop eating / finally start eating” - and sometimes not just from loved ones, but also from insufficiently qualified doctors or psychologists. A giant global business machine is dedicated to maintaining the ideal of thinness. After the market was already saturated with goods in the middle of the 20th century, the time has come for a new strategy - a focus on services to improve oneself and the initial scarcity of the human (and especially female) body. The natural is no longer beautiful. There's something wrong with your body! Fix this urgently, otherwise no one will ever love you/marry you/work you, etc. We started with deodorants and widespread removal of body hair, then teeth whitening, rejuvenation, plastic surgery to enlarge some parts of the body and reduce others, and finally, here is the bottomless, endless race for unattainable perfection - to become perfectly thin, looking like mercilessly photoshopped fashion models - fitness -clubs and weight loss programs, exercise equipment, special belts and corsets, slimming leggings and tights, anti-cellulite creams and gels, mesotherapy, hellish anti-cellulite massage, hardware procedures, laser and surgical liposuction, bariatrics... and an endless number of programs and books about weight loss diets magic pills and cocktails! And this entire industry mercilessly provokes people into excessive preoccupation with their body, weight, nutrition, endless attempts to live up to unattainable (!!!) ideals, which often leads to eating disorders. The development of eating disorders is based on a whole complex of factors - genetics, microbiology and psychology. And the trigger (note, not the cause, but the trigger!) of disorders in most cases is diet - limiting food in quantity, type, calorie content. Hunger is one of the most basic traumatic and disturbing conditions for the human body. Therefore, any diet sets off an “alarm” - danger! life threat! - and mechanisms are activated that slow down metabolism and transfer incoming calories “to reserve”, in case they don’t feed again later. That’s why weight rebounds are so common after diets, when a person loses 5 - after a couple of months he gains 5 back and a couple more on top, loses 10 - after a year plus 15, and so on. Constantly counting calories quickly develops an obsessive focus on this action and disrupts the ability to enjoy food; after eating, a painful feeling of guilt for “forbidden pleasure” follows, a decrease in self-esteem, “punishing” oneself with another diet, hard training, or even vomiting to compensate for what one has eaten. .. A diet or an ultra-rigid training regimen does not give the “ultimate” result. You either live in this state of eternal tension, limitation and neurosis all your life, or you swing on the scales of success and failure with low self-esteem and self-hatred... Several experiments with diets, and the circle is closed. Not only the relationship with food is disrupted, but also a person’s social functioning - communication with friends, the ability to work effectively, build relationships... At the same time, both extreme obesity and extreme thinness lead to deterioration in health and well-being, and anorexic thinness is much more dangerous, than obesity, and more often leads to death. Within the modern model of eating disorders, the following types are distinguished: -! :)