Eating Disorders And Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia is an eating disorder that struggles with the fear of gaining weight and refuses to be healthy. Another eating disorder is Bulimia, which is when you overeat followed by forced vomiting and excessive exercise. Binge Eating is one of the most common eating disorders along with Anorexia and Bulimia, Binge eating is when you lose control over one’s eating. All of these common eating disorders all suffer from guilt or depression. “Individuals with bulimia and binge eating eat large amounts of food to reduce stress” (CEDC). They also could have risky behaviors, such as dealing with drugs or alcohol or even death. People with Anorexia or Bulimia are very concerned with being overweight or in other words fat.

Both are eating disorders and individuals with the disorder both have a fear of weight gain. Patients self worth and evaluation is mainly based on weight and appearance. There is no official cause but both disorders can be related to culture, family, life/history, stressful situations and/or biology. There are concerns about weight and body image. There is a poor body image because of cultures emphasis on thinness. Causes could also involve major stressful life changes or could be because of participation in activities that are appearance orientated such as ballet or modelling. There are also many similarities in behaviour, effects on health, treatment and statistics. Behaviour for individuals with either disorder can include excessive exercise, mood swings, self harm etc. There can be many effects on health whether these are physical (hair loss, dry skin,) psychological (depression, mood swings) and social (isolation/withdrawal.) Patients with anorexia and bulimia will also resist treatment, due to the fear of gaining weight. Statistics show that both disorders can be developed at any age for both males and

Anorexia nervosa is characterized by refusal to maintain body weight over a minimum level considered normal for age and height, along with distorted body image, fear of fat and weight gain, and amenorrhea (absence of menstruation). Bulimia nervosa is characterized by binge eating followed by purging. These behaviors should occur at least twice a week for three months. Binge eating disorder typically

There are two main categorizes when it comes to eating disorders. The first is anorexia nervosa and the second is bulimia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa is described as a “body image disturbance together with a relentless pursuit of thinness, often to the point of starvation” (Silva, 2007, pg. 285). Anorexia in simple terms can be described as not eating. Whereas bulimia nervosa is different, it is the act of eating large amounts of food and later on purging it to get rid of it.

Eating disorder is a term used to describe several psychological disorders characterized by abnormal eating habits. Some of the most common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa is probably the most well-known of these. A person suffering from anorexia nervosa will obsess over weight gain and show unusual anxiety related to weight gain. Depending upon the type (binge-eating/purging type or restricting type) a person will either consume food and then attempt to “purge”, a term used to describe a method of forced removal of food from the body such as self-induced vomiting, or they will restrict the amount of food consumed. In most cases the person will be under healthy weight and often see themselves as average weight or even overweight. In bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders the affected person will eat excessive amounts of food. People suffering from these diseases report feeling out of control during their binge eating episodes. In bulimia nervosa binge eating episodes are followed by some method of purging whereas in binge eating disorder they are not, although the person normally expresses feelings of guilt or embarrassment afterwards. People suffering from bulimia nervosa are usually average weight which can make detection difficult. Those with binge eating disorder are normally

Anorexia nervosa is starving oneself, sometimes even to death, because of a personal believe that one is unattractive or unlovable. People with anorexia have a six fold increase in mortality rates compared to people who aren’t. And many of the deaths are sudden due to irregular heartbeats or coma induced by low blood sugar. Bulimia nervosa is eating and then Vomiting soon afterward or using a laxative to get rid of food in order to avoid weight gain. About 1 to 3 percent of adolescents and college aged women have bulimia. Binge eating disorder involves binge eating but not purging afterwords. About 3.5 percent of all women have this disorder, and it is more common in obese people.

Anorexia Nervosa is a serious psychological disease where people develop a constant desire to lose weight and limit their daily energy intake. Anorexia results in declining body fat, unrealistic perceptions and exaggerations of your body image and usually involves an incline in exercise. People with Anorexia can either be restrictive with their food, count kilojoules and skip meals or binge eat and purge. Anorexia Nervosa is the most dangerous and harmful mental illness in Australia. 1 in 10 young adults

Each has it’s own criterion for being diagnosed, but they also have quite a bit in common. First, food is the object of stress. The meaning of food is what becomes precarious to those with eating disorders. It is viewed differently depending on the individual’s upbringing and experiences. Some view it as the enemy, some view it as a source of comfort. You don’t have to be thin to have an eating disorder.

Eating disorders have similar attributes to addictions and impulse control disorders as they have the two components of cravings and compulsivity. Eating disorders display the attribute of cravings when it comes to the craving to obtain food or even purge food. Compulsivity is also seen when people compulsively eat until they feel sick. These attributes are easy to see within the diagnoses of binge eating. Binge eating involves eating an abnormally large amount of food in a small amount of time. This can be a craving for those with the disorder and they find themselves compulsively eating until they are awfully full. The attributes of cravings and compulsivity are also seen within other addictions and impulse control disorders as they

Anorexia Nervosa is perhaps one of, if not the most well-known eating disorder. Anorexia Nervosa is the condition of a lack or loss of appetite and is also classified as an emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat.

Anorexia nervosa is a disorder defined by the DSM 5 as a disorder characterized by the client displaying:1. Restricted food intake (energy) proportional to sex, age and developmental trajectory that leads to weight loss. 2. Processing fear of becoming overweight in spite of being underweight. 3. Dysfunctional way of experiencing one’s body weight or shape. Perceived unfavorable view of one’s body or shape (self image), and or lack of seriousness concern or denial of the seriousness of low body weight, (APA, 2013).

In our culture today, people concerned with the way they look to a high extent, how much they weight, their physical appearances and how to change a body part they do not like. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are eating disorders that affect a person’s weight to an extreme due to wanting to be thinner when in reality they are already thin to the bone. Both disorders have their similarities and differences from their main obsession of body weight to how they try to lose it.

Initially both disorders can be caused by becoming obsessed with unhealthy foods such as Pizza, chocolate chip cookies, ice-cream, chips etc…Consuming more than supposed in a normal balanced diet can escalate to eating disorders or also obtained by genetic conditions (Davidson3). First of all Anorexia is triggered by self-imposed starvation (Davidson2). As the article states that “women are unable to stick to unrealistic diets; therefore, they overeat, and they feel guilty; so they start to over exercise, and they start to vomit all unwanted calories (Davidson3). Similarly, Bulimia is caused by many factors such as Heredity mentioned in (Davidson3). Like Anorexia, Bulimia can damage the pharynx and even the teeth’s caused by all the acid having a high PH when extracting the foods consumed by poking it out your system (Davidson4). Likewise,

Anorexia nervosa- Lack or loss of appetite, Also a mental condition made by the person. Many women, children, and young men suffer from this. Bulimia nervosa - an emotional disorder involving distortion of body image and an obsessive desire to lose weight, in which bouts of extreme overeating are followed by depression and self-induced vomiting, purging, or fasting. is 1.5% in women and 0.5% in men. This translates to approximate 4.7 million females and 1.5 million males suffer from bulimia nervosa.

“Anorexia Nervosa is characterized by self-starvation to avoid obesity. People with this disorder believe they are overweight, even when their bodies become grotesquely distorted by malnourishment.” (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia)