Eating Disorders Glossary

• Adipose Tissue: Fat tissue.
• Aerobic: Fat-fueled; aerobic exercise increased basal metabolic rate, reduces appetite, firms muscles, improves cardiac and respiratory function, and burns flab.
• Adult-Onset: Occurring for the first time in those who have reached maturity.
• Amenorreah: The loss of the menstrual cycle. In terms of eating disorders this is usually the result of excessive weight loss and often accompanied by excessive exercise.
• Anorectic: A name frequently used for diet medications that cub appetite.
• Anorexia Nervosa: Self-induced starvation with at least 15 percent of original body weight lost. Victims also have amenorreah, fat phobia, and a severe distortion of body image.
• Bulimarexia: Binging followed by purging through laxative abuse, forced vomiting, excessive exercise or enema abuse.
• Bulimia Nervosa: Uncontrolled eating in the presence of a strong desire to lose weight.
• Catharsis: The emotional reenactment in thought or symbolic form of a painful experience that brings relief of the distress caused by the original experience.
• Diuretic: A chemical that stimulates the production of urine. Also known as a water pill.
• Enema: The injection of a liquid into the lower bowel through the rectum to compel elimination.
• Etiology: Cause or origin. Specifically, all the causes of a disease or abnormal condition.
• Gastroplasty: A surgical procedure used to reduce the digestive capacity by shortening the small intestine or shrinking the effective side of he stomach.
• Hunger: The physical urge to eat that is prompted by immediate need or energy.
• Juvenile-Onset: Occurring between infancy to young adulthood.
• Obesity: This controversial term is often used to describe individuals at least 20 percent above the weight recommended for one's height.
• Oral Expulsion Syndrome (OES): The chewing but avoidance of swallowing food. OES is a diet technique in some people, but the reflection of emotional disturbance and eating disorders in most.
• Panacea: A remedy for all ills or difficulties.
• Pathorexia: Disordered appetite. It refers to the whole spectrum of food disorder problems
• Phobia: An unrealistic fear, often with obsessional characteristics.
• Postpartum Depression: A depression that follows child birth in some mothers. Cases can be mild or severe enough to be labeled psychosis and require hospitalization.
• Purgatives: A substance or method used to eliminate food before it can be digested.
• Purging: A forced cleansing or release. In terms of eating disorders this is usually done by vomiting or laxative abuse.
• Rumination: The apparently voluntary regurgitation, chewing, and reswallowng of food.
• Setpoint (Theory): The weight a person or an animal maintains and returns to after dieting or overfeeding. Setpoint varies with age and activity levels, and may be raised if the organism is subject to chronic deprivation.
• Steatopygia: Large buttocks and heavy upper thigh distribution of fat deposits.
• Sublimate: The expression of an "unacceptable" impulse or urge in a positive or acceptable way. The standard of unacceptable and acceptable usually relate to societal norms.
• Thermogenesis: The generation of heat, particularly in brown fat deposits, that provides necessary warmth, and may also be a way the body burns excess food and so avoids eight gain.