A Broad Spectrum Of Eating Disorders

Topic: What is causing young adults and teens to develop eating disorders and how can we help them?

My current view on food is that it creates a sense of comfort and fulfillment, yet this was not always the case. During my teenage years I struggled with an ongoing eating disorder. During that time I viewed food as a threat, or an enemy. As part of my recovery process, I was given a task to make friends with food. I first approached this task with a closed mind, finding a wrong with every meal I ate. My view changed completely when my friends took me out to a vegan diner for a burger and sweet potato fries meal.

Forty-three published abstracts were retrieved from PubMed database and three were retrieved from CINAHL database, for a total of 46 articles for potential inclusion in the review. Three duplicates were then removed, yielding 43 articles for potential inclusion. Two articles were excluded because they are commentaries. Three articles were excluded because they are reviews. One article was excluded because it is a case study. 14 articles were excluded because they do not include a mindful eating intervention. Two articles were excluded because they do not focus on weight or weight-related co-morbidities. One article was excluded because it focuses on anorexia nervosa or bulimia. One article was

Eating disorders are a very serious psychological condition that affects your mind so that you are more focused on your food and weight than you are on everything else. The most known and most commonly diagnosed eating disorders are anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder; however, these are not the only eating disorders. Eating disorders cause psychical and psychological problems, which at their worst can even become life threating. Statistics show that more women are affected by eating disorders, but men none the less can still be affected. “Age (most common from teens to early twenties), Family history (hereditary), emotional disorders (people with anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder are at a great chance), transitions (moving, heading to college, or anything that can bring emotional distress), and sports (ballerinas, gymnasts, runners, and wrestlers are at a higher risk) also can play a role in who is being affected by an eating disorder” (Eating Disorders).

The four sections that follow review the article “A qualitative study of transgender individuals experiences in residential addiction treatment settings: stigma and inclusivity” by Lyons, T. Shannon, K., Pierre, L., Small, W., Krüsi, A., Kerr, T. (2015).

Anorexia nervosa is starving oneself, sometimes even to death, because of a personal believe that one is unattractive or unlovable. People with anorexia have a six fold increase in mortality rates compared to people who aren’t. And many of the deaths are sudden due to irregular heartbeats or coma induced by low blood sugar. Bulimia nervosa is eating and then Vomiting soon afterward or using a laxative to get rid of food in order to avoid weight gain. About 1 to 3 percent of adolescents and college aged women have bulimia. Binge eating disorder involves binge eating but not purging afterwords. About 3.5 percent of all women have this disorder, and it is more common in obese people.

According to the Mayo Clinic (2016), eating disorders are “conditions related to persistent eating behaviors that negatively impact your health, your emotions, and your ability to function in important areas of life.” One such eating disorder is anorexia nervosa. Not to be confused with anorexia, which is simply a general loss of appetite that can be attributed to many medical ailments, anorexia nervosa is a serious eating disorder and mental illness (Nordqvist, 2015). Anorexia nervosa is estimated to affect about .9% of women and .3% of men in their lifetime (“Eating Disorder Statistics & Research,” n.d.). In general, the disorder is commonly characterized by a distorted body image or self-concept, critically low weight (with respect to the patient’s height and age), and an irrational fear of becoming fat or an intense desire to be thin. There are two subtypes to this eating disorder: restrictive and binge/purge. In the restrictive type, the individual limits caloric intake and may compulsively over-exercise. In the binge/purge type, the individual consumes a considerable amount of food in a short period of time (binging) and then deliberately vomits (purging), takes laxatives, or fasts intensely in order to compensate for the food eaten (“General Information: Anorexia Nervosa,” n.d.). In either case, anorexia nervosa is undoubtedly a dangerous and alarming illness.

I thought the chapter in the textbook about eating disorders was very interesting. This is a very real and current issue in our country today. And as I learned in the reading, it affects many countries throughout the world, not just the United States. According to the PsychWatch section on page 281, “Eating Disorders Across the World”, non-Western countries are starting to be exposed to more Western and United States television and magazine advertisements, and this is resulting in more cases of eating disorders in these countries. Both men and women are affected by anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. The statistics show that more women than men have these eating disorders. But it is hard to say if this is true, or if just more women seek help.

Eating disorders are one of the most prevalent mental disorders in the United States. Although this disease is typically viewed as a female disorder, males are greatly affected and may go undiagnosed and untreated due to the attached stigma. Thus, it is important to understand the risk factors associated with the development of eating disorders in males. These risk factors include: athletic involvement, sexual orientation, pre-morbid obesity, and adverse childhood experiences. Eating disorder type and symptom presentation also varies between males and females. Males typically do not meet the criteria to be categorized as Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa, causing their condition to be classified as Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Symptom presentation is likely to include binge eating and excessive exercise rather than restrictive eating, purging, or other compensatory methods commonly seen in the female population. Several eating disorder assessments are available for use in clinical practice, most of which have been geared toward the female gender. New assessments, such as the Eating Disorder Assessment for Males, have been developed recently to try to hone in on the typical male symptomatology and their psychological processes. Prompt treatment of eating disorders, regardless of gender, is necessary to prevent the development of medical and psychological comorbidities. This process cannot begin until the diagnosis has been made; therefore, additional

Brewerton, Timothy D. "Eating disorders, trauma, and comorbidity: Focus on PTSD." Eating disorders 15.4 (2007): 285-304.

My goal in becoming a clinical psychologist is to specialize in the field of eating disorders. After obtaining my PhD, I aspire to become a tenured faculty member at a research university, using my research and clinical training to enhance the understanding of the etiology, course, and treatment of eating disorders. As an established researcher, I will leverage my research by writing grants to address my research hypotheses and disseminate my findings in journals and conferences. Additionally, I seek to evaluate the efficacy of various treatments in hopes of constructing a comprehensive and holistic model of care that properly addresses every aspect of the individual and his/her disorder. Through this research, I hope to provide valuable contributions to the field and to become a more effective and empathetic clinician.

For this paper, I chose to focus on eating disorders looking mainly at their causes. Based on personal experience, I feel that these disorders are stereotyped very heavily in our society, and that public awareness of their causes lacking. Growing up I was always very thin, due to a high metabolism and a small bone structure; traits which ran in my family. Many times, people would make fun of me and even call me anorexic. However, I was not anorexic or bulimic, I was just a thin child, and am still a thin young woman. These trials taught me a very valuable lesson about labeling people, and how much that can hurt them. This is one of the reasons I chose to write about this topic. I also chose to focus on the causes of these disorders because

In the article by Christopher Fairburn and Paul Harrison, it summarizes what is an eating disorder, what types are there, and how it can start or happen. The article says that there are three types of eating disorders; the first type is Anorexia Nervosa, which is describes someone with a desire to reach a very low weight by restricting food intake. The second type is Bulimia Nervosa which is described as after attempting to restrict food intake, one losses control and consumes an unusually large amount of food, the repeatedly binges. The last type is Atypical Eating Disorder which doesn’t have an exact definition, but is often a variation of the two or even a mix of both anorexia and bulimia; Fairburn and Harrison claim that there hasn’t been

Eating disorders plague the lives of many people mentally and physically. Eating disorders are very common in the United States. More than eight million American men and women including children and adults suffer from eating disorders. There is more than one type of eating disorder. The following eating disorders are the most common ones found in the United States and other countries worldwide: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge Eating disorder. There are many factors that contribute to eating disorders and the treatments being done to help people who are suffering from eating disorders.

Eating disorders seem to have become more common during the latter half of the 20th century, during a period of American beauty icons becoming thinner and women’s magazines publishing more articles on methods for weight loss (Garner, Garfinkel, Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980). Dissatisfaction with one’s own body a result of the increasingly thin depictions of female body shapes in the mass media has been mainly attributed to the Caucasian young female population (Striegel-Moore, Silberstein, & Rodin, 1986). To date, there has been relatively little empirical research investigating the prevalence, etiology, and treatment of eating disorders in ethnic minorities. Additionally, studies investigating the direct link between acculturation of Asian American individuals in Western societies and eating disorder symptomology have failed to find a consistent correlation. Intuitively, researchers have suggested a positive relationship between acculturation, the adoption of characteristics, beliefs, ideals and values of the host culture (Gowen, Hayward, Killen, Robinson, & Taylor, 1999), and disordered eating symptomology in Asian Americans but the studies have yielded mixed findings. Therefore, there appear to be other factors influencing the development of eating disorder symptomology in Asian Americans, including self-esteem and the drive for thinness.