Eating Pathology: A Gender Analysis

Can We Better Understand Eating Disorders, Namely Anorexia Nervosa, Through A Biomedical Model Or By Socio-cultural Analysis?

Mary Briody Mahowald recognizes that many feminists believe that eating disorders among women stems from a "rebellion against patriarchy through rejection of one's own sexuality" ( Mahowald, 299). However, she also points out theories that focus more on sexism and class discrimination.

Topic: What is causing young adults and teens to develop eating disorders and how can we help them?

Bingeing. Purging. Calorie counting. Excessive exercising. These are actions that are most commonly associated with eating disorders, which are psychological conditions affecting an individual’s eating habits. Though these conditions can appear in any age or gender group, they tend to be most prevalent in adolescent women. A large population of these young women happen to be college students dealing with problems such as body image issues, food insecurity, and other mental health disorders. Unfortunately, the number of college students with eating disorders is steadily rising in the United States, which is why it is important for colleges and universities to find solutions for it.

Eating disorders are largely considered to be a "female disease". Statistics seem to validate this perception – of the estimated five million-plus adults in the United States who have an eating disorder, only ten percent are thought to be male ((1)). Many professionals, however, hold the opinion that these numbers are incorrect – it is impossible to base the statistics on anything other than the number of adults diagnosed with eating disorders, and men are much less likely than women to seek help for such a problem ((2)). This means that the male population probably suffers more from eating disorders than the numbers show.

Forty-three published abstracts were retrieved from PubMed database and three were retrieved from CINAHL database, for a total of 46 articles for potential inclusion in the review. Three duplicates were then removed, yielding 43 articles for potential inclusion. Two articles were excluded because they are commentaries. Three articles were excluded because they are reviews. One article was excluded because it is a case study. 14 articles were excluded because they do not include a mindful eating intervention. Two articles were excluded because they do not focus on weight or weight-related co-morbidities. One article was excluded because it focuses on anorexia nervosa or bulimia. One article was

This article describes how unrealistic standards of attractiveness set by Western society are internalized by women from a variety of cultural backgrounds and translated into fat-phobia and body dissatisfaction and then discusses alternative cultural influences for food refusal such as issues of control, acculturation, and religious asceticism. The author claims that there is a need for culturally sensitive questionnaires and diagnostic criteria and suggests that the notion of anorexia as a culture bound syndrome is no longer valid as the illness as been identified in a number of non-western societies. A valid point is made

Despite being the most prevalent eating disorder amongst individuals with developmental disabilities and may occur in as many as 25%-33% of children, there is much that is still unknown about pica. There has been little advancement in finding out what causes this disorder and because of that, treating and even diagnosing pica can be difficult. In addition to that, pica can have health consequences that range from mild to severe so, when coupled with the difficulty in treatment and lack of breakthrough research, pica has the potential to be an extremely dangerous disorder.

In our society, speaking about mental illness and the stigma surrounding it is almost considered taboo. People are uncomfortable with confronting the prospect of being mentally ill and even more wary of seeking actual treatment. In the study discussed in “Self-Stigma of Seeking Treatment and Being Male Predict an Increased Likelihood of Having an Undiagnosed Eating Disorder”, explores whether stigma surrounding eating disorders within an individual, particularly in men, make men less likely to seek professional treatment, thus resulting in an ignored and undiagnosed eating disorder.

There is a lack of studies that investigate the eating pathology among Latinas even though there is evidence that a binge eating component (i.e. binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa) is more prevalent among Latinas compared with other races. For those who are engaged in binge eating tend to have unrealistic high expectations for themselves, which often are difficult to achieve. When the individual, in this case a Latina, has fallen short of these high expectations, they experience negative affect from which she is motivated to binge eat. Dr. Neyland proposed that stressful experiences across three domains of interest: individual, family, and environment. The independent variable of acculturative stress (individual level) is defined as the stress and reduction in health status that one experiences while going under the process of adapting to a different culture. Then for family, there is family disconnection, which is not unique to Latinas but there is a strong emphasis that Latinas place on family relationships. They value it so much that if they experience family disconnection, they would likely be experienced as failure to meet cultural standards. And lastly, there is the environmental factor which is discrimination. Among Latina/os, there is a large amount of reports of discrimination which is believed to have impacted many to have lower self-esteem and a significantly slower growth in self-esteem over time. Neyland hypothesized that

These ideas have not just been secluded to magazines but medical journals as well, many recent scholarly articles have been written on this growing topic. One scholarly article focusing on the lack knowledge and treatments available to men was written by medical experts Jane Dalgliesh and Katherine Nutt. The two published their article, “Treating men with eating disorder in the NHS” in the May 2013 issue of Nursing Standard. Dalgliesh and Nutt emphasize that fact that eating disorders are still focused on females when diagnosing. Specific medical symptoms like “amenorrhea” (the absence of menstrual periods) it harder to confirm that a male has an eating disorder and the medical field needs to update what they look for (Dalgliesh). In addition to mentioning the issues arising from the currently set and used symptoms for diagnosing, the authors criticize the field when they move on to the treatments for patients, or the lack thereof. Dalgliesh and Nutt confirm that some facilities refuse to house male patients because lack of resources and preparedness which should never be a reason to turn someone in need

The journal article from Masami Horiguchi in the Gender-based relationship between eating behavior and sense of coherence in Japanese young adults spoke of what causes eating disorders. For many an eating disorders is caused by different reasons; however, in this journal article, the eating disorder is caused

Brewerton, Timothy D. "Eating disorders, trauma, and comorbidity: Focus on PTSD." Eating disorders 15.4 (2007): 285-304.

More women worry about their weight than men. It is a fact that among the adults, 38% of the women and 24% of the men were trying to lose weight. When you hear about Anorexia and Bulimia most people think of females. What people do not know is tons of males suffer from the same problem. I believe males should be more looked upon when it comes to this subject. Gymnasts, runners, body builders, rowers, wrestlers, racers, dancers, and swimmers are especially helpless against dietary problems on the grounds that their games require weight limitation. Approximately 10% of eating disordered individuals coming to the attention of mental health professionals were male, and Eating disorders do not discriminate on the basis of gender. Men can and do develop eating disorders.

habit. Eating disorders can affect both males and females, but this researcher found that it affects