The Rise in the Number of Girls Suffering from Anorexia Nervosa

Incidences of Anorexia Nervosa have appeared to increase sharply in the USA, UK and western European countries since the beginning of the 60s (Gordon, 2001). The increasing prevalence of the disease has led the World Health Organisation to declare eating disorders a global priority area within adolescent mental health (Becker et al. 2011). Anorexia has in many ways become a modern epidemic (Gordon, 2000) and with a mortality rate of 10% per decade (Gorwood et al. 2003), the highest of any mental disorder (Bulik et al. 2006), it is an epidemic that social and biological scientists have been working tirelessly to understand.

Dr. Levenkron talks about Anorexia Nervosa as a pathological distortion of today’s society of being “Fashion-model thin.” This source is reliable because it is told from a doctor's/psychotherapists perspective of the disease. It informs and broadens my research on the pathological aspect of the disease. Dr. Steven Levenkron uses case studies and specific strategies to explain and help cure the disease.

For many the term “Anorexia” conjures up memories of bone thin, weight obsessed teenage girls, models, and actresses. However, as the spotlight has been shined on Anorexia bringing this secretive and quiet disorder to a wider public perception, many still suffer in silence: either too ashamed to seek treatment, or because of an improper diagnosis.

Beauty standards in the media are one of many reasons feeding and eating disorders are a rising problem. The unrealistic body types of being extremely thin, in pop culture, are influential factors for many teens, especially teen girls. According to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), anorexia nervosa is a “restriction of energy intake, intense fear of gaining weight, and a disturbance in the perception of one’s body size” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Individuals diagnosed with anorexia tend to place a high value on their shape and weight, which can interfere with their daily lives. Individuals diagnosed tend to view of their body shape in a distorted representation. The motivation to become

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “the body type portrayed in advertising as the ideals is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.” (“ANAD”) Body image has been a controversial theme because of the influence of the media. It is a widely known fact that eating disorder cases are on the rise. The concept of body image is a subjective matter. The common phrase, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,” holds true meaning in this sense. One’s view and value of their body is self-imposed. Falling into the destructive eating disorders reveals much about a person’s psychological and emotional state. Examining the mental, physical, and emotional conditions behind recognized eating

In this article “Fighting Anorexia: No One to Blame” it discusses the struggles and challenges children face as young as 8 years old and teens from 13 to 18 years of age when dealing with the eating disorder “Anorexia Nervosa.” Which is defined in our text as an “eating disorder characterized by self-starvation” (Bee, pg. 384). The staff of “Newsweek” also discuss who or what is to blame for anorexia nervosa in the past parents have been blamed when their children have shown signs in regards to this disorder. Research has shifted from blaming the parents to the possibility anorexia might have some links to mental disorder, genetics or even environmental factors which can influence the disorder. Lastly, the article discusses various

Anorexia Nervosa is an emotional disorder that causes its victims to have an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat. It is known to be the third most common eating disorder among adolescents. Many who suffer from the disorder have a strong fear of gaining weight and they 're very determined to prevent any weight gain. AN patients are also incapable of recognizing the severity of their condition. In the article entitled, "A Factor Analysis of the Meanings of Anorexia Nervosa: Intrapsychic, Relational, and Avoidant Dimensions and Their Clinical Correlates", Enrica Marzola explains, "AN sufferers often refuse treatments, show poor compliance with therapy leading to high dropout rates, relapse, and high mortality" (Marzola 2). Marzola examines how many patients become very attached to their illness and do not wish to be recovered from it. In addition, Not only do many AN patients believe that the disorder has help them gain their ideal body image, but they 've also described their starvation as a way to escape from any negative emotions, strengthen their identity, and reveals their distress. Enrica Marzola also addresses, "These instruments confirmed that AN sufferers experience a

Eating disorders have become an increasing public health problem once thought to be an affliction amongst young women, now an epidemic across culture and gender boundaries. Anorexia gives rise to serious socio-economic and bio-psychological circumstances of our ever vast, growing society. Awareness of eating disorders have increased but perhaps only in proportion to its advancement of its research and treatment. That which still leaves us in a position for a much greater demand for education and heightened awareness of this perplexing disease.

About one in 200 persons in the United States will develop anorexia nervosa at some time. Ninety Percent are women (Anorexia Nervosa—Part 1 1). Anorexia is defined as an emotional disorder characterized by refusing to diet or eat. This is targeting young girls all across the world! This calamity is struck by something every person loves, social media. The media realm needs to be ceased from the websites that support dieting, celebrities displaying perfectionist bodies, and the social media world: their main victim to such disease are young teens. In particular media plays a role in anorexia in young teens because of social media and celebrities, the model industry, and the “thigh gap”.

As many as 20 percent of those who suffer from anorexia will die early from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems. While there are many possible causes and triggers for these disorders, the media’s influence on body image cannot be overlooked. "My problem is the top of my legs and my bottom, which sticks out. I would like a smaller bottom because I find it difficult to fit into some jeans." Harriet’s obsession with her body scares her mother, sadly Harriet is not the only one who faces this problem daily. 40% of girls aged between 6 and 12 want to change their appearance. Don’t you think this is wrong? Kids who should be worried more about spelling words and math problems are being wrapped into the Medias image of a perfect body. Teens are more afraid of gaining weight than they are of cancer, nuclear war, or losing a parent.

Bulimia nervosa is when the person vomits anything they eat in order to “lose weight”(people usually maintain their same weight) and anorexia nervosa is when a person eats very little or does not eat in an attempt to lose weight (Belsky, 2010). Anorexia nervosa is far more dangerous than bulimia nervosa; it can cause serious health problems and even far worse - death (Belsky, 2010). In the article's research, eating disorders are very present with adolescent girls who want to have an “ideal body” image. We also learned about ideal thin, which is a “media-driven cultural idea that females need to be abnormally thin” (Belsky, 2010, p. 251). Without say, media has a big contribution behind the dramatic choice that adolescent girls make in order to fit in society. “…women compare themselves with the idealized, symbolic images, and, on finding that they ‘fail’ to meet the social cultural standards” (Lopez-Guimera, 2010, p. 404). Adolescent girls risk their own life (maybe without knowing it) in order to feel accepted in society. Both the research articles and the course text book emphasize that “fitting in” is highly important for adolescents, making them take dramatic choices to do so but those adolescent girls are unable to recognize that medias “ideal body” image is unrealistic. “A primary

The first article, “Anorexia Nervosa in Adolescent Girls: A Culture-Bound Disorder of Western Society?”, focuses on the talking about anorexia adolescent girls in western society. This article would be labeled the social science and discipline because there are clues given from not only the title, but also within the article itself. Social sciences are a mixture of the humanities and natural sciences which means there are not only human experiences, but also scientific evidence to rely on. First, we would start with the structure of the article. When the article is shown it is in the APA format which is widely known for this form of discipline. Even if it was not known you see how the author set up the information for the readers to know the

Academic publishers are very selective about the research papers they decide to publish. The importance of a research paper exists in its capacity to establish an informed point of view, along with the sharing of the information it provides. In many of these articles it is noticeable that the arguments are well communicated, the findings are properly structured, and the messages of complete research articles are clearly written and understood. Research in general is significant because it offers us with long-lasting knowledge and information, in regards to a particular topic. It can also help give us a better understanding and give us a clear picture, so that we are able to see an issue from multiple perspectives, rather than just one point of view (Maloney, 2013). This essay aims to critique the qualitative research paper “Anorexic dis(connection): managing anorexia as an illness and an identity” by Emma Rich (2006). In this essay the research questions, the literature review, research design, the sampling, and data collection used in this paper done by Rich will all be critiqued in this essay.

ering from Anorexia-Nervosa within western countries, compared to that of 3.2% of females suffering from Anorexia-Nervosa in non western countries (DiNicola 1990:253), it is not surprising that Anorexia Nervosa has been labeled a Culture-Bound Syndrome. There have been three prominent hypotheses as to why this particular disease is considered so. The most prominent of these hypotheses is that westernized media’s ideologies of thinness and beauty have influenced young females into developing a “fat-phobia," also responsible is the incompetent ability of western biomedicine in diagnosing the disease, and finally westernized socio-culture’s influence on anorexia outside of western regions.

Perfectionism and obsessive tendencies as the root cause of Anorexia Nervosa is a reoccurring theme in many patients’ experiences, for example in a personal narrative of an unnamed anorexic patient explains her experience with Anorexia Nervosa and how her perfectionist and obsessive character influenced her developing this eating disorder. She describes that initially her “rigid and controlling eating pattern merely seemed to fit with the perfectionism characteristic of most of my daily interactions” and that they had nothing to do losing weight (Anonymous 78). She developed an obsession with trying to control every aspect of her life in order to ensure she would be able to achieve the highest accolades academically, athletically, musically and socially (78-79). As she became more controlling with her diet and exercise, she began to lose so much weight that she had to be hospitalized, forcing her to miss school and sports, losing “many of the achieved statuses that once had been so important to [her] identity” resulting in her focusing even more “to the one status I still had that society seemed to value: being thin” (79). In short, this women’s story illustrates how the underlying psychological factor of perfectionism leads her to traits of Anorexia Nervosa, specifically rigid dieting and excessive exercising, and then societal value of being thin which is constantly present in mass media drove her further into the disease. This emphasizes that while the root cause of