Anorexia In America Summary

Food. It is essential for survival. Without it, people die. However, oddly enough, many struggle to live without it to accomplish the standards that our culture has created for us. We are taught that being thin is perfection and will lead to a happier life. However, lurking are the health risks that one pays for obtaining the “perfect body”. Still, along with a distorted body image, others struggle with keeping weight down and fall into the diet fads that the world parades. From movies, magazines, and television, the media also sends us messages that being fat is bad and unhealthy while being thin and beautiful is acceptable. The impact of such influences has increased eating disorders in America. These disorders do not

The study conducted had a sample size of 90 Polish women with AN and the control group was 120 females without any signs of an eating disorder. These females were studied to identify any substantial differences in behavior. The result of the study was that females with AN exhibited less control over cognitive function and emotional behavior. The conclusion reached was that being able to identify the symptoms typical of an eating disorder in females could help in improving treatments and could also prevent any dangerous habits developed by those with

In the Western culture, it has long been the tradition to strive for perfection in everything possible. In many ways, this has moved our culture and technology forward. This can also be quite detrimental to people, because perfection is often not attainable. In the medical field, perfection is often the goal for patients. When dealing with the human body, perfection really isn’t universal nor a realistic goal. This strive for perfection has caused some health problems for people including anorexia, erectile dysfunction, and ADHD. When people from other cultures are introduced to the medical system in Western culture, there is often a large degree of confusion and extremely different practices.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that consists of self-regulated food restriction in which the person strives for thinness and also involves distortion of the way the person sees his or her own body. An anorexic person weighs less than 85% of their ideal body weight. The prevalence of eating disorders is between .5-1% of women aged 15-40 and about 1/20 of this number occurs in men. Anorexia affects all aspects of an affected person's life including emotional health, physical health, and relationships with others (Shekter-Wolfson et al 5-6). A study completed in 1996 showed that anorexics also tend to possess traits that are obsessive in nature and carry heavy emotional

People with Anorexia have a desire for self control. As Demi quoted, "I think it was definitely a control thing. Some people just don't want to feel the emotions that they have. I think a lot of it is just me numbing myself out so I didn't have to deal with certain problems or trauma.” The desire for self control also goes along with puberty and growing into a certain body type that the person has. That self control allows the specific person to completely wreck their self image and self

The patients were asked to write letters as part of their treatment to address how it was there friend or their enemy. Cognitive and behavioral models of anorexia nervosa often take in to account positive reinforcers as maintaining factors in the disorder (Serpell, Treasure, Teasdale and Sullivan, 1998; De Silva,1995; Garner & Bemis,1982; Vitousek & Ewald,1993). I found it interesting that little research has been conducted on the positive effects of AN. According to Serepell et. al (1998), in clinical work with anorexic patients, there is a similar tendency to concentrate on the negative aspects of the illness, such as the dangers of osteoporosis, loss of concentration, and problems in relationships. I feel that these letters focusing on the positive and the negative aspects of AN help give a better understanding and insight to the disorder. The letters were coded with Pro-Codes which included guardian, attractiveness, control, difference, confidence, skill, avoid, communicate, fitness, and

However, dieting is the first step for anorexia patients and the diets become more and more restrictive (Graves,2000). Girls are more likely to develop a poor body image and have weight concerns because they accumulate fat during puberty (Ojeda,2003). Many watch television (T.V.) or get on social media sites when they go home after school and they see dieting commercials or a hamburger commercial with a model eating it and want a perfect body just like they have but many of them are not aware of what models do to themselves to get to that weight and have that perfect body image. Models are many times unhealthy themselves because instead of being on a healthy diet many just do not eat and smoke instead to fill themselves

Men with anorexia sometimes display other psychological problems. While affected women tend to be more perfectionistic and displeased with their body. Children and adolescents who suffer from anorexia are at risk for a slow growth and development.“Anorexia tends to affect the middle and upper socioeconomic classes and Caucasians more often than less advantaged classes and ethnic minorities in the United States” (Stockwell, 1990). “People with anorexia lean towards compulsive behaviors, obsession with food, and or addiction characteristics in efforts to overly control their food intake and weight” (Harries, 1992). According to ANAD, statistics show that “0.9% of American women suffer from anorexia in their lifetime.1 in 5 anorexia deaths is by suicide”. (Carney, 2009)

Being skinny has been America’s greatest beauty ideal for decades, a societal standard pressured upon women. In our current society, the media expects women to look a certain way. However, the media’s interpretation of an ideal body is so warped and distorted that many women are attempting to attain an unrealistic physical appearance that will never be possible. Most models within the fashion industry are thinner than 98% of American women (Lippey). When models are photoshopped and put in magazines, completely unachievable body goals are displayed everywhere. Even models suffer from substantial expectations-- 64.1% of models have been asked to lose weight by their agencies (“Model Scouts”). Models can be perceived as perfect, epitomes of beauty, and yet they too are unable to reach their own agency’s demanding requirements. These unhealthy and toxic standards have been placed upon a tall pedestal that no one can achieve. According to the NEDA (National Eating Disorders Association), there has been “a rise in incidence of anorexia in young women ages 15 to 19 in each decade since 1930” (“Get The Facts”). Damaging and negative concepts are established during childhood, forcing adolescent girls to believe that if they can’t fit into

Furthermore, culture concept of beauty have negatively influenced on the development of anorexia on teen girls. Each culture has its concept of beauty and usually everyone wants to fit on, mainly women and girls. Young girls, being more vulnerable because of their age, they are more likely to feel inferior if they notice that do not fit the standards of beauty on their culture. For instance, according to the book Inside Anorexia: The Experiences of Girls and their Families, anorexia is becoming more and more popular and reaching different social and cultural groups due to the fact in the western societies, thinner female bodies are being considered the ideal ones. It asserts that the government and others, being concerned about the rising rate

Anorexia Nervosa is one of the most prevalent disorders that afflict women, where between 0.5 to 4.0 of all females in Western countries develop it in their lifetime. Victims of anorexia are obsessed with becoming thin and practice refraining from consuming food as well as cycling through bingeing and purging. The question arises if all women in Western society will at one point be fated to struggle with an eating disorder. Even more frightening is the fact that many young women and adolescents are affected by anorexia and are at risk for the various medial problems that result from the disorder. In this paper, I will be discussing my personal experience with certain traits of the disorder, as well as why I believe that anorexia and eating disorders in general perhaps are so prevalent.

As the term "anorexia nervosa" did not exist until 1873” (The first anorexic). In the western world one of the first accounts of anorexia nervosa was during “the 12th and 13th centuries, most famously Saint Catherine of Siena who denied herself food as part of a spiritual denial of self” (A History of Eating Disorders). Most cases of anorexia had to do with fasting as a religious or spiritual experience. However for the women of the Victorian period being thin had transformed and became a way for them to feel successful instead of powerless. It wasn’t till 1970 that the disorder was able to reach the public as it wasn’t just the upper-class that was suffering from anorexia. Again anorexia evolved into the "twentieth-century women progressively idealized the lean, almost 'tubular' body type, deprived of the symbolic emphasis of fertility and motherhood. The thinness of the 'new woman' expressed her sexual liberation and rejection of the traditional female role" (Bremer, J.). Whereas before woman needed to look healthy and capable of having and raising children, now women were aiming to achieve independence the need to be those thing were

Anorexia Nervosa is known as “anorexia.” However, this disease should not be mixed up with the term anorexia which is simply a lack or loss of appetite, which in fact individuals who suffer from this disease refuse to maintain their healthy recommended body weight. Our text titles Nutrition Essentials tells us that someone who suffers from anorexia nervosa keeps a “body weight, that’s 15% or more below the average weight for his or her height, (Schiff 298.) They develop an unhealthy obsession fearful of gaining weight and becoming obese according to the authors of the text,” when dieting becomes dangerous.” People suffering from the illness typically set impractical and unattainable body goals. Furthermore, they can view themselves as fat and obese when on the contrary they look like a bag of bones. (Michel 5). Anorexics use their weight, shape, and size as the basis for their self-confidence and self-

I thought the eating disorders, such as “extreme reduction of food intake or extreme overeating” are interesting because it means we have a lot of food nowadays. If the person become Bulimia Nervosa, he can eat too much food because there are more than enough food recent years, on the other hand, if the person become Anorexia Nervosa, he rejects to eat even there are lots of food. In my opinion, it is very fortunate environment to live. There are still some people who cannot eat properly in some developing countries. Moreover, about one hundred years ago, even people in developed countries could not eat too much because of world war.

This paper is a critical analysis of how research into pro-anorexia websites effects is insufficient for determining their influence on body dissatisfaction, dieting and anorexia nervosa (AN) disorder. These unorthodox services have received outrage in recent New Zealand (NZ) news coverage because they are seen to advocate engagement in eating disorder behaviour, and disengagement from professional treatment (Hawkes, 2017).