CW: references to eating disorders
I’m health class in high school we had a unit on eating disorders and one thing I remembered learning was that people with bulimia tend to be “normal” or “over” weight (as compared to those with anorexia) because food begins being absorbed as it’s in your mouth so even if you binge and purge you can still gain weight. I get that you can’t throw up *everything* but I don’t understand why purging food before it gets completely digested by the stomach and stuff doesn’t get rid of the calories?
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That’s not correct. Yes, certain things like simple sugars and alcohol can be absorbed in the mouth. However, this is at best a tiny amount. This is not the reason why (some) people with bulimia have normal or excess weight.
The causes of eating disorders are complex, and no two people are the same. A person with bulimia doesn’t necessarily binge and purge all the time. Rather, this may come in episodes, and outside those episodes the person may eat relatively normally. If the person is overweight, it may be because of what they eat in between episodes of binging and purging (simply eating “too much” is not considered binging).
In addition, it is true that purging may vary in its “effectiveness”. It all depends on the person’s specific binging-and-purging habits. If they don’t always make themselves vomit, or if the purging is delayed or “incomplete”, then the binge-eating itself may cause weight gain.
In any case, I think the main thing to note is that people with bulimia don’t typically purge all the time, after every meal. Usually it’s only after binge-eating. But again, eating disorders aren’t black-and-white, and a person may have characteristics of more than one (e.g. bulimia as well as anorexia).
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