by Raine Saunders

Created on: August 13, 2009   Last Updated: August 15, 2009

Has anyone ever asked you whether you have an eating disorder? These days, everyone seems to know someone with one, but eating disorders are much more common than people think. In the 1980s we saw an enormous surge of teenage girls described as having bulimia (binging and purging) and anorexia nervosa (starving oneself to death) in order to keep from being overweight. These were extreme examples of eating disorders. But there are other eating disorders which may masquerade themselves very sneakily - so difficult to detect in fact, that you may not even realize you or someone else you know has it. The whole way our culture has evolved to regard and consume food can indeed be categorized as one enormous eating disorder. Why is this true?

On the go, no time to eat

Consider the way people live life in modern society - we are constantly taxed and on the go, doing more things each day than is humanely possible to accomplish. Our jobs are demanding and provide little opportunity for breaks, vacations, or rest. Because we are so busy, that leaves little time for much of anything - especially preparing a nutritious, home-cooked meal.

Unless we pay attention to what we buy and are mindful of ingredients, even those of us who do prepare "home-cooked" meals can easily end up preparing food that is virtually devoid of nutrients. What we wind up eating, most of the time, falls into the category of convenience foods - foods that you don't prepare from scratch and which come out of a package, can, or box. And these foods are not natural nor nutritious. The convenience foods are, in fact, one of the main problems in our eating disorder. We have come to depend on and accept these foods for so many years, we believe them to be just fine and healthy to consume.

So what's the result? Fatigue, weakened immune systems, shot adrenal glands, and susceptibility to health issues and disease. That describes our society very well. It goes without saying that when people become tired, they look for something quick and easy to eat - and that's seldom a home-prepared meal with healthy and organic ingredients from scratch. Most of us reach for something easy to prepare out of a can, package, or box.

What many of use eat are "quick" foods like food bars, crackers, pretzels, cookies, muffins, processed bread (full of dough conditioner, high fructose corn syrup, modified corn starch, etc.) with peanut butter (containing hydrogenated oils), shakes and smoothies with little

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next Page >>