Anorexia and Bulimia Essay

Characteristics of anorexia are dieting despite being thin and having an obsession with caloric intake as well as fat grams. An anorexic person often pretends to eat or will lie about their intake of meals because of their belief of being overweight. With all of the food restrictions many problems occur in the body and outside of the body. Some of these risks include the drastic change in brain chemistry that makes it difficult for them to think correctly, decrease in memory, fainting, or they may become sad, moody, irritable, or depressed. Other changes would include, hair may become thin and brittle, skin is dry and easily bruises, they get cold easily, and nails often get brittle. However those are not the most dangerous risks. If one is anorexic,

Many young women suffer from eating disorders. Criticized and shamed by the many for their body, weight, and looks, insecurities are abundant in these women. Especially female celebrities, whom are constantly held to unreachable standards by the public. These insecurities can lead to a plethora of psychological problems or disorders, including eating disorders. An eating disorder is defined as “an illness that causes serious disturbances to your everyday diet, such as eating extremely small amounts of food or severely overeating” by the National Institution of Mental Health. In the past few years, many celebrities have come out as suffering from an eating disorder, one of the more recent to be the pop star Kesha.

Development of Anorexia and Bulimia Anorexia and Bulimia are two very complex conditions that have been around for quite a while, however both anorexia and bulimia amongst other eating disorders are becoming more and more prevalent in today’s society. There has been extensive press and media coverage on conditions related to eating disorders. Anorexia and bulimia are two of the most common eating disorders or two of the most prevalent eating disorders around. Conditions relating to eating disorders more than fifty or so years ago were virtually unheard of, this could be due to a number of reasons.

People with bulimia nervosa will often eat excessive amounts of food, called binging, and then use different methods to purge those calories. Methods used include laxatives, enemas, vomiting, diuretics, or over-exercising (Brownell,

Anorexia Nervosa is the condition when an individual abstains from food in order to lose weight or prevent more weight gain. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV(DSM-IV) there are four aspects of criteria to be diagnosed with anorexia: a refusal to maintain weight above what is minimally normal for one’s age and height, and extreme fear of weight gain, distorted body image, and (in females) having amenorrhea(missing three or more consecutive menstrual cycles.)(DSM-IV, 2000:589) Anorexia not only affects weight, but also alters bone growth, neurotransmitters and hormones in the brain, and electrolytes.

Eating disorders were rarely heard of before the 1980s, but after that, they exploded everywhere. With the media constantly depicted “perfect” bodies, people have set unrealistic expectations for themselves. It is estimated that approximately 36 million women have an eating disorder. Over 5 million of those women are American. Although eating disorders know no boundaries, the majority of the people whom contract either of these illnesses are females ages 15-24. The most common eating disorder is binge eating, affecting about 3.5% of all women and 2% of all men. As the number of those affected continues to increase, so does to mortality rate. As mentioned before, eating disorders are the deadliest mental illness and are 12 times more deadly than all causes of death in females 15-24 years of

The prevalence of eating disorders among American women has increased dramatically in the past decade. In turn, the psychological community has expanded it's scope of research and study by focusing more attention on eating disorders and concentrating on other extended issues related to eating disorders. The desire to distinguish and understand a possible relationship between bulimia nervosa and depression has become a major focus within the field. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the reader to literature from two different journal articles on this relationship.

According to the article Eating disorders 101, it states that “Between 5 and 10 million Americans have anorexia or bulimia”. People may not think of anorexia as an addiction, but in many ways it is. Anorexia usually begins as a diet. People may feel a loss of control and dieting is something that they feel they can have control over, thus feeling better about themselves. People will become closer with their bodies and soon develop a preoccupation with food and fear of gaining weight. The person may begin to notice something wrong but won’t stop dieting because the quest for the perfect thin body has become the most important factor in their life.

Half of the teens who develop anorexia later develop a disorder called bulimia nervosa, which is more difficult to detect than other disorders. Those who have bulimia are commonly of normal weight, or even overweight; and sufferers tend to induce vomiting after bursts of “binge eating”, another disorder that usually accompanies bulimia nervosa (“Eating Disorder”). The effects of bulimia nervosa include electrolyte imbalances, irregular heartbeat, gastric rupture, inflammation and/or rupture of the esophagus, tooth decay, peptic ulcers, and pancreatitis

We must also consider the effects of anorexia. People with anorexia experience hair loss and fingernail breakage. Women who suffer will begin to have period loss. Those who continue to be anorexic without getting help can become anemic and even begin to develop very brittle bones. Anorexia is a serious medical illness, and with severe malnutrition anorexia can also cause death.

The effects of bulimia nervosa can be more severe than anorexia due to the frequent binging

Imagine starving yourself to the point of death. Imagine throwing up repeatedly after every meal. This may seem too harsh of a reality to comprehend, but between 30-60% of all United States females are on calorie restrictive diets. (Reel, 3) These diets eventually lead to obsessions about their desired weight and often result in an eating disorder. The two most prevalent disorders today are; Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Bulimia Nervosa affects 2 to 3 % of all women 15 to 40. Many young women between middle and high school develop often these bad habits to cope with the insecurities developing around them. These two disorders are affecting individuals younger and younger each year. Anorexia generally begins between 12 and 20

Common symptoms of Bulimia Nervosa include: damage to your heart or cardiac functionality, liver damage, kidney failure, damage to the esophagus, damage to the functioning of your gastrointestinal system and damage to tooth enamel. (Schulherr, Eating Disorders For Dummies)

     When I think of anorexia, a few things come to mind. I think of really bad episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 and Baywatch in which females, ususally teenagers, starve themselves and take diet pills. The eating problem is always resolved within the timespan of one 30 minute episode. From the research I've done thus far on anorexia, I now know that this is a very unrealistic representation of what is actually a very serious disease.

In a society that discriminates against people, particularly women, who do not look slender, many people find they cannot - or think they cannot - meet society's standards through normal, healthy eating habits and often fall victim to eating disorders. Bulimia Nervosa, an example of an eating disorder that is characterized by a cycle of binge eating and purging, has become very common in our society. Although it generally affects women, men too are now coming to clinics with this kind of disease. This is not a new disorder. It can be brought on by a complex interplay of factors, which may include emotional, and personality disorders, family pressures, a possible genetic or biologic susceptibility, and a culture in which there is an