For some, restrictive eating is a short-lived stage that ricochets into a junk food rebellion. Others find their way back to the middle of the road. But for many, this so-called "healthy" way of eating can become a true obsession and, at its most extreme, an eating disorder known as orthorexia.

Binge eating disorder (BED) is perhaps one of the most widely misunderstood mental disorders despite the fact that it affects as many as 3.5 percent of American women and 2 percent of American men.

My life seemed glamorous and promising: I was in my 20s, living in Paris and Normandy, spending my days training in ballet, modern dance, and jazz, and spending my evenings clubbing with VIP actors, models, and athletes. There was just one little problem: I was killing myself.

I’m telling my story in the hopes that people can begin to realize that eating disorders and mental disorders can affect everyone. What I am doing is something that has scared me for a long time, but I feel like it is something I need to do.

We, as a society, have got to change. This unhealthy focus on appearance has to stop. It's all pervasive -- every magazine, TV show, movie, video game seems to be just a disguise for a how-to guide on how we're supposed to look, feel, and act.

Eating disorders are phobic disorders; therefore, we have to challenge the phobia and support patients in confronting their fears. To do so, we must find something they value more than their eating disorder, something that's so important to them that it overrides this anxiety.

I have not lost weight because I've traded body fat for muscle, and I wasn't trying to lose weight. But I am tighter than ever, and I am buying clothes one size smaller now. I have more energy than I sometimes know what to do with, and I feel confidence that I have never felt before.

That's my suggestion for this holiday. Start looking at what you've bought into. Get some therapeutic help to look at why you overeat. Make a decision that you are just not going to give it all the attention you normally do. Ever again.

I know you're bulimic because I've felt your pain and I've suffered your story. Then again, I also know what life is like on the other side -- but only because I sought help.

Recently, a woman called me to tell me how her daughter was doing great recovering from an eating disorder with the help of a book called 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder, by Carolyn Costin. The woman wanted me to pass the news along to the author.

If you want help recovering from your eating disorder, it can be hard to decide which treatment center to go to. Here are some tips that will help you make the best choice.

For years I've written, spoke, taught and trained about the importance of understanding one's self-worth. I even coined the phrase that self-worth is one element of the equation that makes for self-esteem: Self-confidence plus self-worth equals self-esteem.

To have a disease that is invisible to the outside world, yet almost completely deafening on the inside is extremely challenging. But to have insight to one's own personal strength is eternally rewarding.