Dsm Vs Diagnosis Case Study

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 Nervosa is the condition when an individual abstains from food in order to lose weight or prevent more weight gain. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV(DSM-IV) there are four aspects of criteria to be diagnosed with anorexia: a refusal to maintain weight above what is minimally normal for one’s age and height, and extreme fear of weight gain, distorted body image, and (in females) having amenorrhea(missing three or more consecutive menstrual cycles.)(DSM-IV, 2000:589) Anorexia not only affects weight, but also alters bone growth, neurotransmitters and hormones in the brain, and electrolytes.

The article“Body and Mind: Understanding Eating Disorders” by Bridget Lowry & Mae Puckett, starts off with sharing Jenna who is a Tam student, experience with both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Jenna didn’t really notice any changes or symptoms of the disorder, but instead it was her mother that noticed the changes and that something wasn’t right with her when she fainted out of nowhere. The fainting occurred because she was skipping all of her meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and was not consuming any type of food at all. The reason Jenna developed eating disorder was because she was concerned with the way her body image looked. The authors then move on to talk about the two types of eating disorder which are anorexia and bulimia and they are both described as “intense fear of gaining

This notion, however, has been viewed as more antiquated in recent years, and the etiological perception of the disorder has become a lot more nuanced. An individual’s environment and social status are perhaps more revealing risk factors than race and gender themselves. Social communities that value thinness, such as career fields like modeling and wrestling, are specific causal factors. Peer and family influences also contribute a great deal to disordered eating patterns. A mother obsessed with beauty can enforce a social expectation for thinness even more completely. Changing standards of beauty, from a Rubenesque Venus to a waifish Twiggy, have also been cited as causal factors. The idea that society “causes” anorexia is powerful, but much to simplistic to fully explain the steady increase in cases of anorexia throughout the 20th

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.

Gender roles and culture can have lasting impacts on individuals with anorexia. As societal and cultural norms continue to focus on body image and a desire for thinness, the need for healthy, realistic ideals about beauty will become even more pressing.

The first diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa is a significantly low weight due to an extreme restriction of nutrients. When Miranda passed out, she was significantly underweight for her age and was also lacking the proper nutrients her body needed to function. The second diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa is a fear of gaining weight even though it would be healthy to do so. Miranda started to diet because she wanted to lose weight. She would also feel extremely guilty if she ate unhealthy food because she feared gaining weight. The third diagnostic criteria is being unaware of how unhealthy it is to be at a low weight and the desire to have a perfect body. Miranda focused on trying to get a “perfect” body and did not believe she had reached it yet, even though she was well under weight. The last diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa classifies Miranda into the sub type of bingeing and purging. According to the subtype, a person must binge and purge multiple times over the last three months. Miranda began bingeing and purging two years ago and would do it multiple times a week.

In the DSM-V, feeding and eating disorders are defined as “persistent disturbance of eating or eating related behavior that results in the altered consumption of absorption of food and that significantly impairs physical health or psychosocial functioning,” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, pp. 329). There are several different kinds of eating disorders, the most commonly treated ones are; Anorexia Nervosa (AN), Bulimia Nervosa (BN), and Binge- Eating Disorder (BED). The diagnostic criteria for AN include, persistent energy intake restriction, intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat or persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain, and disturbance in self-perceived weight or shape (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

The first criterion defined in the DSM-V, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, is the “restriction of energy intake relative to requirements, leading to a significantly low body weight in the contact of age, sex, developmental trajectory, and physical health. Significantly low weight is defined as a weight that is less than minimally normal or, for children and adolescents, less than that minimally expected” (Davison, Blankstein, Flett, & Neale, 2013). In other words, the energy intake would be lower than the energy needed for the body to function and assure normal activities of an individual. It results in the weight of the individual to fall below a normal weight when different characteristics as the age, sex, developmental trajectory and physical health are taken into consideration. Karen Carpenter respects the first criteria of anorexia nervosa. Indeed, as a child, Karen Carpenter was overweight and was worried about her weight but seemed to love sugar and eating more than

Even though this event took place once, Miss Diagnosis mentioned that she never felt that her parents had believed her. The criteria for Bulimia Nervosa include recurrent episodes of binge eating. During this time the consumption of food is in excess for a short period of time and eating is uncontrolled. After binge eating they compensate for their behavior. The compensatory behaviors could include purging and non purging. Purging is vomiting, the use of diuretics, and or laxatives. Non purging is when a person exercise to burn off calories consumed on a binge or fasting. Binging/compensating behavior occurs 1 time a week for 3 months. Another major part of Bulimia Nervosa pertains to self image and how a person views their body, even thought they are of average weight. A typical binge consists of about 3000-5000 calories consumed within 2 hours. The typical pattern consists of binging because they are hungry and to regulate emotions. Feeling guilty after consuming a large amount of calories so they purge or non purge. Causes of Bulimia Nervosa consist of genetic links, lowered serotonin levels,

In a society that discriminates against people, particularly women, who do not look slender, many people find they cannot - or think they cannot - meet society's standards through normal, healthy eating habits and often fall victim to eating disorders. Bulimia Nervosa, an example of an eating disorder that is characterized by a cycle of binge eating and purging, has become very common in our society. Although it generally affects women, men too are now coming to clinics with this kind of disease. This is not a new disorder. It can be brought on by a complex interplay of factors, which may include emotional, and personality disorders, family pressures, a possible genetic or biologic susceptibility, and a culture in which there is an

398). Based on these characterizations from researchers, Bulimia and Anorexia are both known for weight loss. Each disorder had a diagnostic criterion from the DSM IV (Diagnostic statistical manual 5). The criteria discussed major symptoms that affected people who binged and people who were anorexic. These symptoms were stated as the following; for anorexia nervosa symptoms included “refusal to maintain body weight at or above minimally normal weight for age and height, intense fear of gaining weight, becoming fat even though the person is underweight, and disturbance in the way in which one’s body weight or shape is experienced” (Netherton, Holmes & Walker, 1999, pg. 398). As for Bulimia nervosa some symptoms tended to be the same as Anorexia nervosa. Researchers stated the following symptoms for bulimic people “recurrent episodes of binge eating, eating in a discrete period of time, including large portion meals, sense of lack of control over eating during the episode, recurrent inappropriate compensatory behavior in order to prevent weight gain, and self-evaluation” (Netherton, Holmes, & Walker, 1999, pg. 398). Based on the symptoms described in the DSM IV, some symptoms tended to be the same which, dealt with the fears of weight gain.

Though eating disorders are inextricably linked to genetics, the environment also largely determines them. Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and most recently Binge eating are three central types of eating disorders cited in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Eating Disorders (DSM-5, 2015). The prevalence of eating disorders is fundamentally a result of Western cultures construction of thinness as an ideal form of beauty. Eating disorders are often discounted as a myth of white privilege. Those in developing countries suffer from malnourishment; so the notion that people willingly restrict their diet is inconceivable to them. However, developing an eating disorder is simply one way of dealing with an issue (actually avoiding) that may

Throughout cultures, mental disorders vary immensely. In some cultures, certain disorders are considered taboo and not even recognized, in other cultures, the treatment of certain disorders varies, but the biggest thing that is different, is how certain disorders effect certain cultures and races less or more than others. This is something that happens in many disorders, but is always interesting to see why this happens. Does this happen because of media, because of society, or another reason? Numerous studies have been done to see how the prevalence of eating disorders varies among different ethnic groups. Although it is most commonly perceived that Western Europeans and North Americans suffer the most from eating disorders , however body disapproval is not just a problem among European culture, it is a problem among other cultures, specifically Hispanic women who are living as an ethnic minority in America.

Now, you may wonder then what would be noticeable symptoms of eating disorders if distorted view of self-body image and self-starvation are not enough to meet the criteria for its diagnosis. First of all, I would like to mention that the prevalence of eating disorders is increasing over the past few decades (Cusack & McGlone, 2016). It is not negligible due to high mortality rates of this psychiatric disorder. Moreover, with its inappropriate conceptions people generally have towards eating disorders make people who are suffering from eating disorders more difficult to get help. Let’s begin with a foremost misconception. What do you