A Research Project On Eating Disorders Essay

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Three of the most discussed are anorexia, bulimia, and what researchers call EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified). Each of the eating disorders can be fatal in their own way. What are the signs, what do they do to you and your body, and what can be done to treat the problem? Researchers have studied long and hard into these three disorders so that those questions could be answered to the best of their ability. In this paper, the outcomes of the research that was done and the thesis

A combination of genetic, physical, social, and psychological factors may contribute to the development of an eating disorder, such as Anorexia. Anorexia is an emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat. Eating disorders effect ten million females and one million males in the United States. Also 0.3 percent of the eating disorders occur in teenage children.

Many may see someone who has an eating disorder as someone who wants 'attention,' while disregarding all of the several factors that play a part in causing someone to take this path in their life. The list of causes goes on and on, yet the basics are right under our noses. Vaguely speaking, biological factors, psychological factors, and environmental factors all take a place on the stand for being causes ("Disorder Hope").

An eating disorder is an illness that involves an unhealthy feeling about the food we eat. “Eating disorders affect 5-10 millions Americans and 70 million individuals worldwide” (www.eatingdisorderinfo.org 1). They also affect many people from women, men, children, from all ages and different races. People who have eating disorders usually see themselves as being fat when they really aren’t. This usually deals with women or teenage girls mostly. They watch television, movies, read articles in magazines, and see pictures of the celebrities whom they want to be like because they have the “ideal body” that everyone wants and craves for. The media makes us all think we need those types of bodies to be happy with ourselves, be more successful

Eating disorders have become and extreme issue among women. However, the ignorance to this subjects’ prevalence is common and it is essential that this is compressed immediately. The impact eating disorders currently holds on society is monumental and is defining the current image of beauty. Definitions of beauty have fluctuated extremely throughout time and the unhealthy processes women have put themselves through in order to conform to societies current definition of beauty has remained consistent. From the corset to extremely high heels to severe thinness, achieving the ideal image of beauty is regularly detrimental to woman’s health. Fashion models continue to struggle with eating disorders due to the fashion industry building a pedestal

Eating disorders is a mental disorder of eating habits that affect a person’s mental and physical health. There are different kinds of disorders, such as, binge eating is when you eat large amounts of food. Anorexia Nervosa is lost if appetite, while Bulimia you eat all the time. Pica is when you are hungry for stuff that is largely non-nutritive. Rumination disorder which usually happens as a child, but brings up food and re-chews the digested food that has already been eaten. Finally the Avoidant/Restrictive food intake disorder is the struggling of eating food.

In today's world, education is not the only necessary survival skill needed in the work force, beauty has also become part of the package. The media created a perfect body image that has caused a new worldwide epidemic. The United States has fourteen million Americans that struggle with an eating disorder. “Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.” (Germaine Greer)

The social issue that is going to be discussed in this paper is Bulimia Nervosa. Bulimia nervosa is defined as “an often-debilitating eating disorder with a bio psychosocial set of risk factors.” (Bernacchi, 2017). Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorders that effects approximately 1 to 1.5 percent of the population within a 12-month period. “It is estimated that between 5 percent and 10 percent of all post pubescent girls and women suffer from an eating disorder in the United States (Kimmel, 2013).” A primary diagnostic characteristic of this disorder is experiencing recurrent episodes of binge eating, which is then followed

Eating disorders are becoming more common in the United States every day. The medical field should direct more focus toward diagnosing and treating eating disorders. Anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder (BED), and other psychological disorders are involuntary, and often go ignored or undiagnosed. These disorders have many dangerous medical side effects, and often are not diagnosed properly. With the numbers increasing every year, eating disorders have become a serious problem for many people besides just teenage girls.

Thousands of people in this world struggle with eating disorders. “Gina battled bulimia for seven years—struggling on her own in secret—before she finally opened up to her mother. Gina wrote her a long letter explaining her shame and embarrassment, and gave her mother a book about how to deal with someone with an eating disorder,” (“Eating Disorder Treatment and Recovery”). This is a big problem all around the world, but it can be solved. To help people with eating disorders around the world people need to work together to educate people, motivate them to change, and to create a healthy body image.

If a provider has a suspicion of an eating disorder or weight problem in an adolescent patient, then a discussion must take place to prevent future complications that can arise from being underweight. Unfortunately, adolescents who develop an eating disorder are likely to continue the practices into young adulthood and possibly beyond (Brauser, 2011). Due to this outcome, it makes it ever more vital that providers bring the weight issue out into the open so reasons for the patient participating in the abnormal eating behaviors can be found, and then solutions developed to help the adolescent with their weight. Anorexia and bulimia are the primary eating disorders of concern, and they are complex conditions that are very difficult to treat and are associated with significant medical and mental health comorbidities (Burns, Dunn, Brady, Starr, Blosser, 2013). Not only will the provider need to talk with the adolescent, but the parent of the child should be involved, as well, so there can be continual support at home if an eating disorder is discovered.

Eating disorders are serious disorders that can be life damaging. Eating disorders affect five percent of women and one percent of men in the United States. Reports show that five to ten percent of women who have an eating disorder will die within ten years of having the disease. People need to be taught to be more aware of the dangerous effects of eating disorders.

However, treatments are available for helping with eating disorders, but unfortunately, there is no cure. Eating disorders are prevalent and can only be cured by the individual. According to Treasure J, “Practice recommendations emphasize the importance of specialized care for the treatment of eating disorders, but such care is not often accessible” (587). I believe that raising awareness for eating disorders will help prevent the spreading and increasing of eating disorders. Many people are not intelligent when it comes to eating disorders and they all have different presumptions about this disorder. Eating disorders do not seem like a huge impact to people around the world but in reality, “Eating Disorders affect up to 24 million Americans

In modern culture, women and men are becoming less satisfied with their body shape. According to a report that was done by the Federal Trade Commission, seventy percent of Americans are either trying not to maintain their weight or are trying to lose weight (Kittleson 75). To compensate for being over weight, an individual will develop an eating disorder. According to Mark Kittleson, eating disorders are when an individual eats way too much or way too little (1). There are three different types of eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. According to Jessica Bennett, twenty-five million people in the United States suffer from binge eating disorder and ten million women and one million men suffer from either anorexia or

The correlation between eating disorders and other psychological disorders is very important for our understanding of the causes and possible treatments for eating disorders. It is known that many people with eating disorders also fit the criteria for several DSM-IV psychological disorders. If researchers can find patterns of comorbidity between these two types of disorders they may be able to better diagnose and treat patients with both of these disorders. The question that I pose it what is the relationship between eating disorders and personality disorders(axis 11 disorders in DSM-IV)? It is important to look for comorbidity between the two disorders to determine the impact they have on each