If a person eats far too much food repeatedly, does that mean we should classify him as "mentally ill?"

It seems to me that too often people want to put all instances of low self-control in the "disorder" basket, thereby making a personal problem into a "medical" one. See "kleptomania," "compulsive gambling," "pyromania"...

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Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles If a person eats far too much food repeatedly, does that mean we should classify him as "mentally ill?" It seems to me that too often people want to put all instances of low self-control in the "disorder" basket, thereby making a personal problem into a "medical" one. See "kleptomania," "compulsive gambling," "pyromania"...

an addiction to a good feeling...tis all it is...whether or not it is a "Medical" condition i don't know...

Why do you ask?

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Originally posted by chach *barfs all over this thread*

That's a different disorder.

Binge-eaters keep all of their food down.

Well being fat is a sickness punishable by death.
/jp

like wise, I was reading the other day that some study indicates that up to 70% of the population suffers from "mild depression".

I don't see the need to formally define depressive phases people may go through due to certain events in life, as depression.

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quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles If a person eats far too much food repeatedly, does that mean we should classify him as "mentally ill?"

Are mentally ill individuals really "ill"? Thomas Szasz's got some interesting criticism to that notion, and these arguments have been echoed by many oher theorists, such as Michel Foucault (although Foucault is not nearly as radical, and is not a critic of psychiatry per se). So, before even starting, we'd have to reach a consensus here. What's is mental illness? Should anything be considered a illness if it can not be physically detected?

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quote:

Originally posted by Lira

I largely agree with Szasz about the wrongness of coercive "care," which was his main concern, but the way he constructs his arguments is ridiculous because he relies totally on mind-body dualism.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles If a person eats far too much food repeatedly, does that mean we should classify him as "mentally ill?" It seems to me that too often people want to put all instances of low self-control in the "disorder" basket, thereby making a personal problem into a "medical" one. See "kleptomania," "compulsive gambling," "pyromania"...

People don't overeat just because they have low self control. They overeat to fill a void. Nothing wrong with pathologizing that kind of behavior. Ideally a healthy individual eats for fuel, not to feel good.

Emotional eating FTL.

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First of all, you're confusing medical disorders with psychological disorders. They're two completely different things.

What is and isn't a psychological disorder is subject to a lot of debate. This is why these things need to be considered on a case to case basis. A given behavior in one individual may be considered completely normal, while it could be the opposite for another. So just because someone goes on eating binges, doesn't mean they suffer from a binge-eating disorder. This is also part of the reason why there's so much discrimination towards people who suffer from these disorders - It's difficult for someone on the outside, with limited understanding of the subject, to comprehend what these people are going through.

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Originally posted by Project-K First of all, you're confusing medical disorders with psychological disorders. They're two completely different things.

They aren't really treated as such these days. Most mental disorders are treated as amenable to correction with chemicals, and in order to prescribe those chemicals one has to have an MD.

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It's difficult for someone on the outside, with limited understanding of the subject, to comprehend what these people are going through.

I'm not denying that people who binge eat have real problems and pain that cause them to do so. But I am skeptical of how productive it is to label such behavior as a "disorder." Doing that merely isolates the behavior itself as an "illness" and distracts from the emotional issues that may be causing the binge eating.

Eating food you like relases edorphans in your brain that make you happy much the same way like when your having sex so people binge eat because it feels good.

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