By  Marie Moeller ’15

By high school, students have been educated on the threat of eating disorders, especially anorexia and bulimia, through health class. While students are well aware of the characteristics of each disorder as well as the physical and psychological repercussions, many fail to realize that there are several other eating disorders outside of the two that are stressed in the school curriculum. Even though anorexia and bulimia are both very severe, the leading killer, with a mortality rate of 5.2 percent, and most common of the eating disorders is actually Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS).

Of the people with eating disorders, up to 70 percent have EDNOS. A person is generally diagnosed with EDNOS when he or she meets some but not all of the criteria for anorexia or bulimia. For example, a person would have EDNOS if his or her BMI was not low enough to be considered anorexic, despite having substantial weight loss. A person may also have EDNOS if he or she does not binge and purge as regularly over a period of time as required to be diagnosed as bulimic.

EDNOS is particularly dangerous because it does seem to be a less severe version of anorexia or bulimia. As a result, many people with EDNOS feel as though they do not have an actual eating disorder. This poses a serious problem with students in particular. With so much stigma placed around being thin, many teens go through periods of dieting and exercising in the name of getting healthy. However, when an obsession with food and a constant awareness of one’s weight begins to take root, an eating disorder can develop.

Those with eating disorders engage in various risky behaviors, fluctuating between limiting how much food they eat, to binging, to feeling self-loathing and guilt, to purging or exercising. While EDNOS results in the same thought process as anorexia or bulimia, the lack of physical indicators, such as being exceedingly underweight, in many cases, causes people to discredit their eating behaviors. Consequently, these teens will persist in their habits, which is dangerous in the long-term for their mental health and physical.

It is important to raise awareness to EDNOS, which has recently been transformed into Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorders (OSFED) in order to include feeding disorders. Many people remain undiagnosed and, therefore, untreated because they simply do not know enough about these disorders. If people can understand that they can still have a mental disorder without fitting perfectly into the boxes set by more well-known disorders, then more people can receive the help they need.