Recently, I took a nutrition class and therefore, learned about the various eating disorders that are more unknown than anorexia or bulemia. We were informed of one eating disorder in which sufferers chew food but the proceed to spit out the contents. Although it's probably not well known, do these people gain a notable amount of calories through the chewing process or are the only calories absorbed the ones coming from digested food?

If the answer is yes, is this absorption similar to that of chewing gum?

Also, what kinds of special risks are associated with this eating disorder? Because it's a lesser known disorder, very little information was presented to us.

I heard somthing similar too... This is what I learned in my nutrition class a couple of years ago:

The blood glucose level increased SHORTLY after a person with eating disorder consumed foods. The time it took was so short that there's no way the food has reached the intestine. The researchers behind the study SUSPECTED that absorption began as early as in the stomach instead of in the intestine as we've commonly understood.

My thought on this is that our body is a very very complicate system. Our body will do its best to maintain our overall well-being. In the case of anorexia, our body strives to absorb every single available calories as soon as possible...

I don't know if this is going to cause any permanent harm to the body. Like you said in another post, the jury is still out there

the chewing and spitting method is not so much an eating disorder by itself, but an act involved with bulimia and anorexia. its commonly done when people with eating disorders are in a situation where they are being forced to eat, like at a family dinner (chewing food and spitting it into an opaque cup of drink.)

or sometimes its used so get the taste of food, without the calories. although usually this doesn't last long as it takes a fair amount of will power to actually spit it out, and your bound to swollow some... and they would most normally be C/S something like chocolate so the paranoia of swollowing those cals might be enough to make them not do it so much.

hope this helps a bit...

alyn

Hi,
A famous American boxer, Archie Moore World Light-Heavyweight Champion popularised this eating pattern in the mid fifties; he claimed that he didn't get the calories, so no weight gain, but he did get the nutrients so no strength loss. I don't know if any of this was ever proved but it made a lot of Australian trainers take notice.
John Bobbin BNat