Overeating can refer to excessive food intake or total parenteral nutrition. Eating disorders like hypereating and bulimia can cause weight gain and health problems. However, overeating can also be a medical treatment for severe cases. Nutrition can be delivered through various methods depending on the patient’s need and tolerance.
Overeating is a word with several related definitions. In its most accurate sense, the term refers to overeating or excessive food intake, as might occur from people who habitually overeat. Alternatively, it can be used to refer to total parenteral nutrition. This is a method of supplying the body with food or nutrients via an intravenous (IV) line or tubes that connect to the body when a person is unable to consume nutrition in adequate amounts. It should be noted that the second definition is somewhat inaccurate because total parenteral nutrition does not actually provide more food or nutrition than is needed under most circumstances.
Those with eating disorders can sometimes be said to have hypereating. They may overeat and some people may then induce vomiting to get rid of the food. When food stays in the body, it typically results in significant weight gain because too many calories and fat are consumed. Because chronic overeating is often linked to psychological states, the problem tends to worsen as weight gain occurs, leading to further episodes of overeating.
On the flip side is the binge-eating and purging behavior usually associated with bulimia. The urge to consume far more calories than necessary is often emotionally driven, but the guilt associated with this behavior can cause people to induce vomiting. This may not lead to the excessive weight gain associated with chronic overeating, but the entire cycle can recur, putting people at risk for other health problems.
While overeating can be viewed in a negative light, as being caused by severe eating disorders, it can also be a very important medical treatment that could also address some eating disorders. For example, anorexics may be liquid fed in a hospital setting because they are physically and emotionally unable to consume enough food to gain weight. Even severely underweight bulimics may receive total parenteral nutrition.
This form of nutrition could be provided under many different circumstances. People with severe burns can be given IV feeding, which helps compensate for the loss of calories and nutrients due to severe skin injury. A number of infants, and often premature ones, may also be fed this way, as it is a means of providing extra calories to speed growth or when babies are too weak to be breast or bottle fed.
While most commonly associated with intravenous administration, overeating can occur in other ways. This includes the use of tubes, such as a nasal gastric tube or a tube connected directly to the stomach. How nutrition is delivered depends on the patient’s need and tolerance. In all cases of medical use, the goal is to make sure that the necessary nutrition and calories get to the body in the most efficient form.
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