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A teenage girl is binging on an enormous amount of food for such a short time through her lunch at school. After quite some time, she purges on vomiting it all out thinking that she might get fat because of too much calorie intake.

Typical high school cafeteria scene? Guess again. Cases like this may be too ordinary to notice but extremely dangerous to overlook.

What seems to be a typical normal eating activity to most teeners is actually an alarming case of an eating disorder and psychological problem.

Eating disorders are psychiatric disorders in which, usually females, have problems with food control and body image. Some people with eating disorders purge into vomiting and taking laxatives, or exercise excessively to try to prevent weight again. In a more medical term, this case is known as bulimia nervosa.

Bulimia nervosa, or simply bulimia, is what experts say a binge-purge eating disorder. In this case, a person with bulimia feast by eating a large amount of food over a short period, and eventually purges by vomiting, overexercising, or misusing laxatives or other medications.

People with bulimia can look perfectly normal. Most of them are of normal weight, and some may be overweight. Women with bulimia tend to be high achievers.

It is often difficult to determine whether a person is suffering from Bulimia. This occurs because binging and purging is often done in secret. Also, individuals suffering from Bulimia often deny their condition. Statistics show how bulimia affects about 10% of college age women in the United States; a very small scale report considering the reality that there is an even larger percentage of undiagnosed bulimic person in the society.

In the United States, psycholigist contend that bulimia is more of a psychiatric problem than an eating disorder. Experts say that a person with bulimia is actually obsessed about their body shape and size and has a poor self-esteem. This problems may be due to a combination of family history, societal influences such as admiring thinness, and certain personality traits like perfectionism.

In most cases, a compulsive eater is known to use food to cope with stress, emotional distress and other psycholigical concerns. However, because of societal influence regarding body image and an emerging effect of pop culture, a person who binged into eating large amount of food eventually purges into vomiting because of shame, guilt, and intense fear of gaining weight.

After all, you have Britney Spears and other teenyboppers dressing in a certain way, and girls want to look their idols and so goes the saying, "Thin is In." True eating disorders usually emerge at two distinct points, both of them are usually in times of great stress for girls seeking a sense of identity. Psychologists believed that the first phase is near the end of puberty and the second is when girls leave high school and enter college.

Athletes or those in professions that require a thin body shape, such as ballet dancers or models, are also at increased risks. Certain personality traits such as difficulty controlling impulses and anger increase the risk of bulimia.

Consequently, as much as bulimia is an alarming condition of most of our teenagers today, it can still be treated. Series of treatments such as psychological counselling and sometimes medications (such as antidepressants) will help eradicate bulimia.

Teaching young girls a healthy respect for food like eating in moderation without obsessing about calories is one step parents can take to reduce their child's risk for problem behaviors, the experts said. Parents should also model behaviors that let kids know that it is OK, maybe even great, to be exactly the person they are.

As they say, a healthy mind is a healthy body.

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