Medical Conditions on Adolescents

Discuss the psychological and social issues that are present and will possibly be more pronounced at this stressful time. How has the fact that this illness has been ongoing (chronic) impacted the family?

Most people with anorexia have a distorted image of their body. An anorexic will look into the mirror and see fat, even if they are sickly thin. Most commonly, anorexia begins in the teen years. This may be related to the common self-image problems that many teens suffer from. Anorexia tends to be more common in females than in males, and early intervention seems to be the key when dealing with this disorder. When left untreated, anorexia can lead to a whole slew of physical problems. Health problems related to anorexia include osteoporosis, kidney damage or failure, heart problems, and even death. Anorexia also affects the brain, as a person starves themself their metabolism changes. This change in the body causes a person not to think clearly or make good decisions. As anorexia progresses, a person will begin to have irrational behavior. For example, a person suffering from anorexia will often make rules about the amount of food they are “allowed” to consume. Others may start to purge themselves after eating even the tiniest bit of food, which is known as Bulimia. Anorexia can also bring on another psychological disorder; Depression. Depression is a mental illness that causes a person to feel sad and hopeless most of the time. People that suffer from depression will lose interest in things that they previously enjoyed, speak slower than normal, have trouble concentrating and remembering things, and be preoccupied by death

While the psychological impact of a chronic illness is not as measurably significant as the impact on the chronically ill child, it is substantial. Internalization is more often exhibited than externalization. This is explained as children did not wish to place more of a burden on the family than was already felt and/or because parents were psychologically and

Leventhal’s model of self-regulation is based on the idea that each person forms a cognitive representation of their illness, which allows them to make sense of their symptoms. This illness perception and the patient’s emotional response then guide behaviour towards managing the illness (Leventhal et al., 1984). An illness perception is made up of five major components. These are illness identity, potential cause, timeline, its consequences and how it may be controlled. Often patients with similar diseases can hold very different perceptions of their illness (Petrie and Weinman, 2012). Clinical severity of the condition does not necessarily predict how a patient will cope. This essay will outline strengths and weaknesses of whether the model can be used to explain health outcomes and coping strategies, implement successful interventions and predict or even improve adherence to treatment. Finally, the importance of constructs not included in the model, such as social support, will be discussed. The essay will evaluate the model using examples of illnesses such as stroke, cancer, diabetes and asthma.

When someone is suffering or living with a chronic illness it can have a huge impact on them psychologically and socially. Chronic Illness is a condition that is prolonged in duration, usually more than 3 months and is rarely cured (DoH, 2012). Having to cope with a chronic condition might lead to life changes, such as dependency on others, loss of income, which can cause feelings of loss and reduced self-esteem. They can also report feelings of social rejection, poor healthcare and workplace termination due to their presenting condition (Earnshaw, Quinn, & Park, 2011).

It’s no surprise that adolescents tend to withhold some of their personal information from their parents for a variety of reasons. When the health of the adolescent in concerned, on the other hand, how should the situation be handled? Teenagers are an extremely vulnerable population due to the many changes, stresses, and difficulties that they experience during their everyday life. This is the time in which adolescents value their privacy the most. The same goes for how they handle their medical situations. When they are just going in for a yearly checkup, a vaccine, or a common illness, most teenagers have no problem sharing the information with their parents to ensure that they are well taken care of. Also, teens typically rely on

Many people do not understand the reasons for this disorder, with deniability of an illness. Those who do not suffer from eating disorders cannot accept the fact that it is an illness or even treatable. Other illnesses such as depression maybe caused by thought behavior; the person feels overweight or looks at themselves as being overweight. The depression can be recognized as feelings of being unloved and disfigured. Eating disorders cause substantial weight loss with those who think they are overweight and have a need to maintain a lower weight in order to feel healthy. Anxiety disorders cause those affected to participate in insalubrious activities; it also causes stress to others around the person who has the disease.

First, psychological consequences of being overweight or obese eating disorders such as binge eating, bulimia and anorexia. In “Bare Bones” (310), Emily Wierenga tells a powerful story of a 12-year-old girl named Carolyn who suffers from anorexia based on her fear of becoming fat. Wierenga’s purpose is to inform the psychological aspects that obesity evokes on one’s body. Anorexia may begin with a desire to diet to lose a few pounds, it also can be a fear of being overweight, but it occurs when the person becomes overly involved in the diet and limits food more than is healthy. In addition, being overweight also causes depression. Many times, people who suffer from obesity often feel they have a low quality of life. Obesity can cause poor self-image, low self-esteem, and social isolation, all known contributors to depression. People experiencing depression overeat or make poor food choices and avoid exercising. Depressed people experience decreased levels of the serotonin have a tendency toward obesity they tend to self-medicate by overeating and restore their normal serotonin levels. Also, obesity also causes lowered self-esteem and body dissatisfaction, most obese individuals feel ‘ugly’ or unattractive. This greatly affects their confidence to interact with people. Psychological issues play significant roles in both the development and consequences of

Disordered eating can consist of anorexia, nervosa and bulimia. The images of being thin portrayed by media can result in teenagers feeling depressed, anxious and incline in self-worth. These feelings can then lead to depression, low self-esteem and anxiety, causing teenagers to lose self-worth.

After watching Dying to be Thin, I have come to the conclusion that eating disorders are a complex systemic disease. I believe that eating disorders are systemic because there was not one person from Dying to be Thin who independently developed these disorders. For example, most of the people who had eating disorders developed them because of some social pressure. I put the systemic title on eating disorders because it would appear that they develop because of dysfunction in multiple systems of an individual’s life. However, I do not want to take the responsibility off the individual who has an eating disorder. I theorize that these individuals have poor coping mechanisms in life. Their coping mechanisms are so poor that they willingly put themselves in harm’s way in order to relieve their anxiety. There was one girl in the video who said the eating was the only thing in life she felt she could control. It comes to no surprise that she could relive her general anxiety by having some form of control in her life.

Categorically, adolescents with anorexia nervosa have a chronic low body weight and are below 85 percent of their expected body weight (Lock, & Fitzpatrick, 2007). Anorexia nervosa is most commonly diagnosed in adolescents, an age that can increase the risks of malnutrition, weight loss, osteoporosis, growth arrest, and absent puberty. Anorexia nervosa can damage an adolescent’s identity, and has the highest death rates of any psychiatric illness (Aspen & Boutelle, 2013; Grave et al., 2014). Adolescents that suffer from anorexia nervosa tend to be perfectionists causing them to focus on negative beliefs, fear of failure, and fear of disapproval. They are often high achievers, are inflexible and rigid in their thinking, and see their symptoms as achievements (Hurst & Zimmer- Gembeck, 2015; Westwood & Kendal, 2012).

Having a long-term, or chronic, illness can disrupt your life in many ways. Your physical abilities may be altered limiting your independence. You may not be able to work, causing financial problems. For family members, this can be frightening, because they may not understand why this is happening. These changes can cause stress, anxiety and anger, leading to depression. Coping techniques from a professional counselor can help a family and patient work through these transition periods of the disease process. Family meetings allowing open communication will provide a judge free environment for family members to ask questions and receive answers to gain a better understanding of the personal struggle the person with the chronic disease is dealing with, further more enabling the family to revel their struggles with this as well.

Self image seems to be a high factor in women and teenage girls. Appearances seem to be everything to some people, especially for women or teenage girls. By believing this, people do not even realize that for some girls go through great lengths to have those looks or self image. The measures women take to do so most likely results in making risky decisions. Anorexia is usually the result of low self-esteem, or self body image of the individual. Women do not seem to understand this leads to a mental disease. This disorder is called Anorexia, this affects mostly women, but in some cases men. Anorexia is a type of medical condition that causes an individual to obsess over the desire to lose weight

Depression a word we’re familiar with especially when it comes to adults, we know adults get depress and we understand the reasons, with the high demands in life it’s not uncommon to get lost in the shuffle. Depression in adult is something we have known for many years, but what has surprised many of us is that adolescents also get depressed. I myself still don’t fully understand the reasons why or how this happens. I see it very often adolescent coming in to the ER because they are depressed and want to hurt themselves, and each and every single time I’m shock. What could be so bad in their lives that would make them think they have no way out? This is the reason why I choice this topic, I want to learn more of how this disease affects so many children and teens and what we can do to stop it.

Teenagers might also face self-image or weight problems. One of the main illnesses that comes from these