Anorexia Nervosa Report

Incidences of Anorexia Nervosa have appeared to increase sharply in the USA, UK and western European countries since the beginning of the 60s (Gordon, 2001). The increasing prevalence of the disease has led the World Health Organisation to declare eating disorders a global priority area within adolescent mental health (Becker et al. 2011). Anorexia has in many ways become a modern epidemic (Gordon, 2000) and with a mortality rate of 10% per decade (Gorwood et al. 2003), the highest of any mental disorder (Bulik et al. 2006), it is an epidemic that social and biological scientists have been working tirelessly to understand.

It is apparent that with the increasing popularity of social media today, there has been a shift in dietary changes within our society. Individuals are subconsciously changing how and what they eat. The question arises, why are so many young women dissatisfied with their bodies, despite their size? Although there are several forces believed to play a role in this dissatisfaction such as peer criticism and parental influences, the thin-ideal body is dominating the media (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008). Thinness is largely emphasized and praised for women in magazines, television shows, movies and commercials (Stice & Shaw, 1992). Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder that stems from this ubiquitous obsession to be thin and is often associated with a pathological fear of gaining weight, distorted self-body image and emaciation (The American Heritage® Science Dictionary).

Beauty standards in the media are one of many reasons feeding and eating disorders are a rising problem. The unrealistic body types of being extremely thin, in pop culture, are influential factors for many teens, especially teen girls. According to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), anorexia nervosa is a “restriction of energy intake, intense fear of gaining weight, and a disturbance in the perception of one’s body size” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Individuals diagnosed with anorexia tend to place a high value on their shape and weight, which can interfere with their daily lives. Individuals diagnosed tend to view of their body shape in a distorted representation. The motivation to become

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 words of American psychologist Mary Pipher, “When unnatural thinness became attractive, girls did unnatural things to be thin”(“A Quote by Mary Pipher”). There are three main types of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. An eating disorder is a mental illness that affects at least 30 million people of all ages and genders in the U.S. every year (“Eating Disorder Statistics”). Of the number of factors that may lead to an eating disorder, the media is an extremely prevalent causative. It portrays an ideal body image that is unrealistic for most people, acts as a trigger for eating disorders in people who may have been prone, and although positive measures are being taken, the overall impact of

“Michelle M. Lelwica author of The Religion of Thinness: Satisfying the Spiritual Hungers Behind Women’s Obsession with Food and Weight declared that ‘Thinness is worshipped in American culture. Unrealistic body images are promoted in the media and entertainment resulting in greater numbers of women and men who feel ‘too fat’ and suffer from eating disorders’” (Shell 1). Eating disorders are characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating. Eating disorders have several causes including behavioral, psychological, and social factors, and they frequently appear during adolescence or early adulthood, but it may also develop earlier or later in life. In today’s culture media has a more powerful presence than ever before; this causes the individual to be constantly bombarded by what the media portrays as a “good” body. The mass communication transmits both positive and negative messages about body image to the public. The general public unaware of what a positive or negative body image can do in mental and physical health end up trying to meet those unrealistic standards, thus, so inducing harmful lifestyles. Eating disorders can be caused by sociocultural incitements such as unrealistic standards, set by society and culture, and lack of knowledge about positive and negative body image, but regulations and education must be established to help reduce the problems.

This notion, however, has been viewed as more antiquated in recent years, and the etiological perception of the disorder has become a lot more nuanced. An individual’s environment and social status are perhaps more revealing risk factors than race and gender themselves. Social communities that value thinness, such as career fields like modeling and wrestling, are specific causal factors. Peer and family influences also contribute a great deal to disordered eating patterns. A mother obsessed with beauty can enforce a social expectation for thinness even more completely. Changing standards of beauty, from a Rubenesque Venus to a waifish Twiggy, have also been cited as causal factors. The idea that society “causes” anorexia is powerful, but much to simplistic to fully explain the steady increase in cases of anorexia throughout the 20th

Anorexia Nervosa is currently viewed by society as an extremely complicated disorder, misunderstood, over looked, and misjudged based on the stigmas of society. People who suffer from eating disorders like Anorexia do not always report the fact they are in living with the disorder because they are ashamed or scared of what might happen to them or what people will say. An individual may also feel that they do not met the exact criteria of Anorexia Nervosa in the DSM 5. An example of the DSM 5 criteria for Anorexia Nervosa is an individual purposely takes too little nourishment, has below average body weight, fearful of gaining weight, refusal to keep a normal weight, distorted body perception

Teens today are always surrounded by advertisements of images of thinness. When they turn on the TV, read magazines or go on the internet. These advertisements are usually promoting something to sell by using images of thin and beautiful people that seem unreal. Both boys and girls feel societies’ pressure to have “the perfect body” so they go through extreme measures like self starvation or over exercising to achieve their goals of the “perfect image”(Elizabeth Weiss Vollstadt,page 26). Eating disorders are mostly developed by women. Although men also develop eating disorders but they only make up 5-10 percent of those affected by eating disorders, leaving women with a huge majority of 90-95 percent affected(Elizabeth Weiss Vollstadt, page 8). Girls who develop the eating disorder anorexia are usually Caucasian and middle to upper class, and are also

Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by abnormally low body weight. Anorexia is an intense fear of gaining weight with a distorted perception of body weight. People with Anorexia Nervosa value themselves on controlling their weight and shape. Mainly using extreme efforts to attend this disorder; it significantly interferes with their daily lives. Anorexia Nervosa can be treated, and the complications from day to day life will subside.

As far as malnutrition and eating disorders are concerned, Anorexia Nervosa is one of these nutrition disorders that may affect people with different sex, age, races, nationalities, and economical situations. It is a serious illness that sometimes, if not treated mentally, may lead to death.1 Anorexia Nervosa patient can be identified by several characteristics, some of which are: being afraid of gaining weight, and abnormal lose of weight due to low food uptake. People having Anorexia Nervosa may use vomiting, laxatives for ejecting the food they have eaten.2 Several studies have shown diversity in sever condition of this type of eating disorders.

Today in society it is founded that Anorexia Nervosa is of most common disorders that affect multiples of women and men across the country. The DSM-V at 307.1 (F50.01) (F50.02) finds Anorexia Nervosa to be a persistent restriction of energy intake leading to significantly low body weight, as related to minimally expected for age, sex, developmental trajectory, and physical health. The DSM-V also finds the criteria of Anorexia Nervosa to be an intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain, the disturbance in the way one’s body weight or shape is experienced, the undue influence of body shape and weight of self-evaluation, or persistent lack of recognition of the seriousness of the current

AN (Anorexia Nervosa) is the most visible eating disorder, is a serious psychiatric illness characterized by an inability to maintain a normal healthy body weight or, in individuals who are still growing, despite increasing weight loss and frank emancipation, individuals with AN strive for additional weight loss, see themselves as fat even when they are severely underweight, and often engaged in unhealthy weight loss behaviors (e.g. purging, dieting, excessive exercise, and fasting). (Bulk, Trace, Kleiman and Mazzeo, 2014). AN not only has harmful physical side effects but has psychological impacts as well. According to Serpell, Treasure, Teasdale and Sullivan (1998), one of the most interesting features of anorexia nervosa which sets it apart from many other conditions is highly valued in nature of anorexic symptoms.

We see beauty in abounding people all over the media, yet the technology of photoshop can trick us sometimes and that is why I am writing this letter about countless ladies being influenced into having the 'perfect' body for the approval of superficial ideas. Consequently, young woman being pressured to have the 'ideal' body or face is inappropriate, for they can become mentally or physically ill, the parents of the child suffer conjointly and the girls will no longer regard what is truly imperative to have a successful and joyful life.

Anorexia is not just a physical disorder it is a mental disorder. A disorder of the chemicals in the brain. How does having Anorexia Nervosa have an effect on ones life? The struggle to just get enough nutrients in their body, can be tiring since they don't have enough energy for that. Having negative thoughts race through their minds about how ugly and fat they are.