Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa

Many people are unaware of the background of eating disorders. Women are more likely than men to develop an eating disorder and they usually develop in childhood before the age of 20 (Ross-Flanigan 1). Women as well as men can develop an eating disorder; it is just more likely for a woman to develop one. Eating disorders are usually developed in adolescent or childhood years when a person is influenced the most. Also “Eating disorders are psychological conditions that involve overeating, voluntary starvation, or both. Anorexia nervosa, anorexic bulimia, and binge eating are the most well-known types of eating disorders” (Ross-Flanigan 1). Many people assume that an eating disorder is when a person staves themselves; they do not realize that it can involve overeating as well. Some eating disorders also involve purging, but not all. People with an eating disorder fear gaining weight even when they are severely underweight. They do not lack an appetite (Ross-Flanigan 1). These people are

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.

Nowadays, when people emphasis more and more on healthy lifestyles, both exercise and food intake have become a big part of the consideration. With the goals of being fit and losing weight, some people eat irregularly or do not eat at all. As a result, eating disorders seem more often on news and reports. However, some people still view it as a joke. With the increasing number of people diagnosed with eating disorders, people should raise awareness on the effects of eating disorders and treat them seriously.

It has been found that eating disorders are most common in the western and industrialized culture where food is abundant. This is because these individuals attach a lot of importance to their physical appearance and are willing to do anything to get the dream figure. An eating disorder is not just watching what one eats and exercising on a daily basis but is rather an illness that causes serious disturbances in eating behaviour, such as great and harmful cutback of the consumption of food as well as feelings of serious anxiety about their body shape or mass. They would start to stop themselves to go out anywhere just so that they could work out and burn all of the calories of a meal or snack that they had scoffed earlier. Two of the most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The regular description of a patient with either disease would be a youthful white female, with an upper social standing in a predictably socially competitive environment.

To be diagnosed with eating disorder, someone must meet certain criteria. The criterion for diagnosis slightly varies depending on if you are referring to people who (A) fear gaining weight, and have significant weight loss,(B) eating a huge amount of food , then use laxative to remove the binged food, (C) the use of excessive exercise and fasting in order to remove or to reduce the amount of calories consumed, and (D) distorted body image, no matter how thin they become, they still see themselves as fat, or not thin enough. The onset of of symptoms begins usually in early adolescence with the diagnostic of disturbed Body image.

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

According to the Mayo Clinic (2016), eating disorders are “conditions related to persistent eating behaviors that negatively impact your health, your emotions, and your ability to function in important areas of life.” One such eating disorder is anorexia nervosa. Not to be confused with anorexia, which is simply a general loss of appetite that can be attributed to many medical ailments, anorexia nervosa is a serious eating disorder and mental illness (Nordqvist, 2015). Anorexia nervosa is estimated to affect about .9% of women and .3% of men in their lifetime (“Eating Disorder Statistics & Research,” n.d.). In general, the disorder is commonly characterized by a distorted body image or self-concept, critically low weight (with respect to the patient’s height and age), and an irrational fear of becoming fat or an intense desire to be thin. There are two subtypes to this eating disorder: restrictive and binge/purge. In the restrictive type, the individual limits caloric intake and may compulsively over-exercise. In the binge/purge type, the individual consumes a considerable amount of food in a short period of time (binging) and then deliberately vomits (purging), takes laxatives, or fasts intensely in order to compensate for the food eaten (“General Information: Anorexia Nervosa,” n.d.). In either case, anorexia nervosa is undoubtedly a dangerous and alarming illness.

There is an estimated eight million Americans that have an eating disorder, seven million of them are women and one million are men (MDH). There are three common types of eating disorders anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. Anorexia nervous which is mostly called anorexia, is an eating disorder generalized by extremely low body weight, fear of gaining weight, and a distorted self-image of their body’s (WebMD). With anorexia nervosa people will limit the amount of food they consume, and try to control their food intake by vomiting after they eat, using laxatives, or enemas, and by exercising an excessive amount. With bulimia when the person will eat enormous amount of food then try to emesis the food up or try to exercise to get rid of the calories they just consumed.

Bulimia Nervosa refers to when an individual over-eats excessively and then takes action to purge the body of the intake. There are five criteria for Bulimia Nervosa in the DSM-IV, which include: recurring episodes of binge eating, recurring actions of purging, the patterns must continue at least twice a week for three months or more, a huge emphasis on body weight in self-evaluation, and the actions must occur apart

An eating disorder is an obsessive collection of interrelated behaviors directed towards persistent eating behaviors that negatively impact one’s health, emotions, and ability to function in important areas of life. These compulsive practices and attitudes about food, weight and body shape, manifest into deep psychological fears and an incessant need for control. Some common features of eating disorders include an irrational fear of fat, dissatisfaction with one 's body often coupled with a distorted perception of body shape, unhealthy weight management and extreme food intake. This disordered eating behavior is usually an effort to solve a variety of emotional difficulties about which the individual feels out of control. Males and females of all social and economic classes, races and intelligence levels can develop an eating disorder (Perfect). There are currently three main types of eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Each one as dangerous as the next, but yet heavily overlooked and/or misunderstood in society today (Perfect); A review of nearly fifty years of research confirms that anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder (Arcelus, Mitchell, Wales, & Nielsen, 2011).

Behaviors of eating disorders have been around for centuries, but it has only been two hundred years since eating disorders have been named and considered a mental illness. Eating disorders can be a fatal illness that can affect a person's eating behaviors. Doctors have established over a dozen types of eating disorders, the two main types that patients are most often diagnosed with are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. According to the new statistics found that almost “ 50% of people in the world either know someone who is suffering from an eating disorder, or they are suffering from an eating disorder” (The Center Of Eating Disorders). When these people get

Eating disorders are mental illnesses that affect a person’s eating habits, causing them to lose/gain weight in an unsafe manner. There are two commonly known eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia, but there are more than just those two most commonly talked about. Anorexia is an illness where the victim refuses to eat and will over exercise to lose weight. Bulimia is an illness where the victim will binge, or eat a lot of food, and purge, or throw up, shortly after. Binge eating disorder is an illness where the sufferer binges on food, but does not purge. Like bulimia, the sufferers have feelings of guilt but find it hard to control themselves around food, eating portions that are excessive. Orthorexia, another disorder not commonly talked about, is a disorder where the patient avoid certain foods he or she may deem unhealthy, eventually deeming all foods unhealthy and having symptoms much like anorexia. Pica disorder is an eating disorder that is very rarely talked about, but it is still very harmful. People with the Pica eating disorder tend to eat inanimate objects, which can cause obstructions and other medical problems.

I have always been intrigued with eating disorders, particularly Anorexia Nervosa. When I was 18 years of age, my mother questioned whether or not I was Anorexic and she took me to the family practitioner, who then informed me that I was three pounds shy from being considered underweight. I knew I was thin, but I was really thin, but also really proud of my size. In an African American urban environment being thin was related to illness and drug abuse. I was often teased about how thin and fragile I looked. I embraced the attention I received from being thin, and did little to change my restrictive eating habit. I wouldn’t consider myself Anorexic, but I was accustomed to eating unhealthy high calorie snacks as a meal replacement. My family practitioner recommended that I see a psychiatrist; I refused and reminded my mother how thin she was in her youth. My mother agreed that she was thin, and decided that she may have been over reacting. I never saw a psychiatrist and remained extremely thin for several years thereafter afraid to ever “get fat”. I do wonder if a psychiatrist would have diagnosed me with Anorexia Nervosa Restrictive type NOS, below is my teen profile.

"Eating Disorders in children and adolescents represent potentially life-threatening, debilitating conditions that impede physical, emotional, and behavioral growth and development. If treated soon after onset, childhood and adolescent eating disorders have a relatively good prognosis; however, if not treated, they may become chronic conditions by adulthood with devastating and sometimes irreversible medical, behavioral, and emotional consequences (Robin, Gilroy, and Dennis, 1998, pp421)."

Eating disorders are a huge problem across the nation. Some of these disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia-nervosa, binge eating, and body dysmorphic disorder. Anorexia is a disorder in which subject obsesses about food and how much they eat, while a Bulimic person eats an excessive amount of food, then purges. People affected by these disorders are obsessed with food however; they do not want the calories, so they eat as much as they can, then throw it up. Binge eating is a disorder in which a person will eat excessive amounts of food because they cannot control themselves. This previous example is not seen as an eating disorder by itself, but it can be associated with one. When a person has