Essay on Anorexia Nervosa

Dr. Levenkron talks about Anorexia Nervosa as a pathological distortion of today’s society of being “Fashion-model thin.” This source is reliable because it is told from a doctor's/psychotherapists perspective of the disease. It informs and broadens my research on the pathological aspect of the disease. Dr. Steven Levenkron uses case studies and specific strategies to explain and help cure the disease.

There are many different psychological illnesses in the world, each with different causes. While eating is an key function of life, some people may be doing harm to their body with their eating habits. Eating disorders occur when a person has a bad relationship with food and can be deadly. The book Elena Vanishing, by Elena Dunkle and Clare B. Dunkle, gives a better understanding of the background of eating disorders and many reviewers are impacted by the book’s vital message.

Keeping in mind that she has always strove for perfection, some irrational thoughts and psychological symptoms have developed concerning her standards for both food consumption and weight. These irrational fears have led her to believe that food is bad, and since she is terribly scared of getting fat, she finds fulfillment by abiding by her restrictive diet and maintaining her abnormal weight by restricting food and using laxatives when necessary to avoid weight gain. It’s easy to see that Joan has developed an obsession with both food and her weight that has taken over her life. All of these psychological symptoms have also caused some social symptoms which have negatively impacted her relationships, mainly stemming from concern of friends and family which usually result in arguments about eating. Joan’s physiological systems are also reflecting concerning symptoms such as dry, inelastic skin, liver problems, unhealthy hair, dizziness, amenorrhea, and of course, excessive

The unrealistic body image leads them to the unhealthy eating habits. However, these things that a person with this eating disorder does in order to “avoid being fat” will not be fixed with weight loss. No matter how much fat is lost, a person with anorexia nervosa will view themselves as fat, even when they are dangerously underweight. The person may either feel fat all over or focus it on a more general region such as the thighs or the stomach (APA, 2013). Their body image issues could be evident by obsessive weighing or

Back in 2005, Amy, at age 17, was diagnosed with Anorexia nervosa after dropping twenty-two pounds for a school dance. Amy had been under a great amount of stress with organizing their school ball, trying to find a partner, and getting a dress. She decided to drop weight before this special occasion. While at the ball, Amy received multiple compliments about her weight loss. This was a contributing factor to her Anorexia. Soon after, Amy’s family noticed she was still dropping weight. Amy was then given the opportunity to meet with an eating disorder therapist (Amy).

The article“Body and Mind: Understanding Eating Disorders” by Bridget Lowry & Mae Puckett, starts off with sharing Jenna who is a Tam student, experience with both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Jenna didn’t really notice any changes or symptoms of the disorder, but instead it was her mother that noticed the changes and that something wasn’t right with her when she fainted out of nowhere. The fainting occurred because she was skipping all of her meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and was not consuming any type of food at all. The reason Jenna developed eating disorder was because she was concerned with the way her body image looked. The authors then move on to talk about the two types of eating disorder which are anorexia and bulimia and they are both described as “intense fear of gaining

Eating disorders can be characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating patterns that lead to poor physical or psychological health. These different forms of disordered eating can often be related to other psychiatric illness. Eating disorders are of interest to many psychologists and are commonly researched to find the biological, developmental, and social backgrounds connected to them. The most common eating disorder in the United States is binge eating disorder. People with this disorder frequently consume large amounts of food to the point of discomfort because they feel that have lack of control over their eating habits. These episodes of binge eating are commonly followed with feelings of guilt, depression, and embarrassment. The main complication

She also described finally being accepted and feeling “cool” (PBS Nova, 2015). It is exactly this positive reinforcement that adds fuel to the fire in eating disorders. This constant societal pressure and influence makes treatment that much more difficult, as it works against anything that is taught in eating disorder psycho-education. As a woman with Bulimia Nervosa mentions in Dying to Be Thin (PBS Nova, 2015), it in was in her research of eating disorder treatment that she found “techniques that worked” and which she adopted into her disordered behaviors toward food.

Anorexia Nervosa is an eating and psychological disorder. This condition goes beyond weight control; the patient starts a diet to lose weight until it becomes a symbol of power and control. Thus, the individual comes to the brink of starvation in order to feel control over their own body. This obsession is similar to an addiction to any drug or substance. According to the Doctors Lemberg and Cohn (1999), eating disorders contribute to the increase of mortality rate; “Aggregate annual mortality rates associated

having the knowledge of how to defeat it, are both powerful tools in treating the people

She had been in treatment multiple times, including inpatient, outpatient, and residential treatments, but has sustained recovery since her last stay in treatment. Rachael stated that she had troubles with body image and food as long as she could remember, but her eating disorder really began to take control of her life when she was eleven years old. She says that she was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa with a binge/purge subtype, so she primarily restricted her caloric intake, but she would occasionally binge on food and vomit (purge) to get rid of it. Rachael says that she did use pro-anorexia websites while she was living with her disorder, but she hadn’t had any interest beforehand. When asked how the pro-anorexia websites affected her, Rachael said, “They didn’t affect me in a good way at all. The websites threw all these “tips and tricks” and images of sick bodies at me, and it taught me everything I could do to be sick. They said it was to be skinny, but really it was to be sick. The pictures made me feel as if I weren’t skinny enough and like I was fat. I thought I needed to look like the girls in the pictures; with their pretty collarbones and their ribs sticking out. The websites made me hate myself.” She then stated that she used them to get sicker, and that she would often use the drastic measures provided on these websites to lose more weight. Rachael also brought attention to the fact that girls who aren’t sick go on these websites looking for tips to get skinny, and often get trapped in the disorder. When asked what her overall opinion on pro-anorexia is, Rachael became very passionate and said, “Honestly, I think it’s disgusting. I won’t even try to put it lightly. Pro-Anorexia is vile and disgusting. Its sole purpose is to make others sick, or keep people sick. It’s anti-recovery, and therefore, anti-life. It’s pro-misery, pro-sickness, pro-disease,

When people use food to provide comfort they are often times compensating or trying to feel a void of anxiety, guilt, shame, low-self esteem, emotional distress, or regular stress. It may stem from a loss of a loved one or the inability to meet societal expectations of weight or beauty. This may be caused by the vast amounts of propaganda and advertisements of malnourished and photoshopped women in movies or on tv. These unrealistic body ideals often lead individuals, mostly women, to develop self esteem issues which causes the dependency for food.

Jessica in Story A is matched with Symptom 1. Although she ate, she was not full and felt hungry almost all the time. She forced herself on counting calories and making sure she did not go over for the day. Moreover, she kept looking in the mirror and thinking that no matter how healthy she ate, she had the intense fear of becoming fat.

The following is a case study of a female client, Melynda, who at a request of a friend is seeking help. Melynda, appears to be suffering from food addiction as a way to self-medicate for her emotions. It appears there are several factors that had resulted in the need for food to find comfort. The client was asked questions to determine if the client’s behavior fits into the diagnoses of food addiction. During further discussion into client’s history, information has revealed that the need for food as a comfort, may have resulted in her freshmen year after the death of her mother. Yet with help through counseling, the client illustrates a successful recovery.

Likewise, the fullness achieved through a binge was an overwhelmingly felt response to states of emotional emptiness. These findings suggest that experiences of binge eating constitute a metaphoric, embodied expression and negotiation of existential states. In the participants’ accounts, emotion and bodily sensation were inseparable; food and eating practices thus provided a literal expression of states of being, such that, for example, the sense of existential emptiness could and anorexia nervosa can be strengthened by including the experience of binge eating as a potential disorder maintaining factor (Karin