Eating Disorders are classified as mental illnesses. They take many forms such as not eating, binge eating, overeating or purging. They all represent an unhealthy relationship with food. People who have an eating disorder will often have a body image issue.
They can have detrimental health consequences if not treated. There are many different types of eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa (skipping meals), Bulimia Nervosa (purging after meals), Binge Eating (extreme overeating), Anorexia Athletica (fanatical about exercising and burning fat off), Night-Eating Syndrome (diet through the day but eat junk food at night), Orthorexia (obsession over the nutritional value of food), Pica (eating and chewing on non-food items such as paper, chalk etc), Rumination (excessive chewing of same food), Drunkorexia (restriction of food intake and calories to allow drinking), Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (ED-NOS) (have eating disorder habits with a healthy weight). Clinically only Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating and Pica are considered eating disorders.
Therapy, nutritional education, exercise etc can assist in the treatment of eating disorders.