Eating Disorders

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 disorders are a very serious psychological condition that affects your mind so that you are more focused on your food and weight than you are on everything else. The most known and most commonly diagnosed eating disorders are anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder; however, these are not the only eating disorders. Eating disorders cause psychical and psychological problems, which at their worst can even become life threating. Statistics show that more women are affected by eating disorders, but men none the less can still be affected. “Age (most common from teens to early twenties), Family history (hereditary), emotional disorders (people with anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder are at a great chance), transitions (moving, heading to college, or anything that can bring emotional distress), and sports (ballerinas, gymnasts, runners, and wrestlers are at a higher risk) also can play a role in who is being affected by an eating disorder” (Eating Disorders).

Anorexia nervosa is starving oneself, sometimes even to death, because of a personal believe that one is unattractive or unlovable. People with anorexia have a six fold increase in mortality rates compared to people who aren’t. And many of the deaths are sudden due to irregular heartbeats or coma induced by low blood sugar. Bulimia nervosa is eating and then Vomiting soon afterward or using a laxative to get rid of food in order to avoid weight gain. About 1 to 3 percent of adolescents and college aged women have bulimia. Binge eating disorder involves binge eating but not purging afterwords. About 3.5 percent of all women have this disorder, and it is more common in obese people.

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.

For Jennifer Keagan, high school was a thrill. She was one of the most popular girls in school. She was valedictorian, homecoming queen, student body president, an honor roll student, and the list goes on. She always strived for perfection. Life was easy for Jennifer. She always got what she wanted. Unfortunately, this all came to a halt when it was time for her to face an all new reality: college. Jennifer was no longer around her friends and family. She was on her own now, and realized that college wasn’t as easy as high school like she thought it would be. It was all too overwhelming for her. She became lonely and couldn’t adjust to the college lifestyle. Eventually food became

There is a broad spectrum of eating disorders. Bulimia nervosa (BN), anorexia nervosa (AN) (two basic types, restrictive (ANR) and binge-purge (ANBP)), and binge eating disorder (BED). People with eating disorders often have a morphed perception of their body. Often they feel the need to be perfect, and when they do not look perfect to themselves they feel great shame. Which in effect causes suicide ideation, because they feel they do not deserve to live. It appears that eating disorders may carry the highest suicide risk of any psychiatric disorder.

A combination of genetic, physical, social, and psychological factors may contribute to the development of an eating disorder, such as Anorexia. Anorexia is an emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat. Eating disorders effect ten million females and one million males in the United States. Also 0.3 percent of the eating disorders occur in teenage children.

1. Death, osteoporosis, anemia, heart problems such as mitral valve prolapse, abnormal heart rhythms and heart failure, increasing risk of fractures later in life and gastrointestinal problems are just a few of the complications one might experience.

For this scenario, the term anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by an overwhelming, irrational fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, compulsive dieting to the point of self-starvation, and excessive weight loss (Wood, Wood & Boyd, 2012 pg. 343). Tiffany is one of the best gymnast on her gymnastics team. Tiffany knows she is the best but is constantly wishing she were thinner like her favorite Olympic gymnasts. Lately, Tiffany’s friends have noticed a drastic change in her behavior and appearance. She constantly complains that she is too fat and ugly. Tiffany has begun a stringent set of routines, which involves more than two hours of rigorous training. Her friends have noticed she is always tired and that she fainted on

It is highly likely that you personally know or know of someone who has been affected by this disorder. The specific disorder that is being referred to in this paper, an eating disorder, is Anorexia Nervosa, the restricting type. An eating disorder “involve[s] disordered eating behaviors and maladaptive ways of controlling body weight” (Nevid, Rathus, & Greene, 2014, p. 335). Another well-known eating disorder is Bulimia Nervosa which is characterized by binging and purging (Nevid, Rathus, & Greene, 2014, p. 338). Bulimia is different than anorexia since victims of bulimia are often normal weight while anorexia victims are well below the average weight.

My goal in becoming a clinical psychologist is to specialize in the field of eating disorders. After obtaining my PhD, I aspire to become a tenured faculty member at a research university, using my research and clinical training to enhance the understanding of the etiology, course, and treatment of eating disorders. As an established researcher, I will leverage my research by writing grants to address my research hypotheses and disseminate my findings in journals and conferences. Additionally, I seek to evaluate the efficacy of various treatments in hopes of constructing a comprehensive and holistic model of care that properly addresses every aspect of the individual and his/her disorder. Through this research, I hope to provide valuable contributions to the field and to become a more effective and empathetic clinician.

For this paper, I chose to focus on eating disorders looking mainly at their causes. Based on personal experience, I feel that these disorders are stereotyped very heavily in our society, and that public awareness of their causes lacking. Growing up I was always very thin, due to a high metabolism and a small bone structure; traits which ran in my family. Many times, people would make fun of me and even call me anorexic. However, I was not anorexic or bulimic, I was just a thin child, and am still a thin young woman. These trials taught me a very valuable lesson about labeling people, and how much that can hurt them. This is one of the reasons I chose to write about this topic. I also chose to focus on the causes of these disorders because

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder in which the individual has a distorted body self-image and an intense fear of weight gain. The individual intentionally restricts daily food intake, which causes alarming weight loss and results in self-imposed starvation. Internal medicine physicians, Brown and Mehler (2015) from Denver Health Medical Center warned, “Starvation induces protein and fat catabolism that leads to loss of cellular volume and function, resulting in adverse effects on, and atrophy of, the heart, brain, liver, intestines, kidneys, and muscles” (p. 11). Medical complications resulting from starvation affect nearly every major organ system in the adolescent body, some more severely than others. While there are 11 major organ systems

Eating disorders are becoming more common in the United States every day. The medical field should direct more focus toward diagnosing and treating eating disorders. Anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder (BED), and other psychological disorders are involuntary, and often go ignored or undiagnosed. These disorders have many dangerous medical side effects, and often are not diagnosed properly. With the numbers increasing every year, eating disorders have become a serious problem for many people besides just teenage girls.

Thousands of people in this world struggle with eating disorders. “Gina battled bulimia for seven years—struggling on her own in secret—before she finally opened up to her mother. Gina wrote her a long letter explaining her shame and embarrassment, and gave her mother a book about how to deal with someone with an eating disorder,” (“Eating Disorder Treatment and Recovery”). This is a big problem all around the world, but it can be solved. To help people with eating disorders around the world people need to work together to educate people, motivate them to change, and to create a healthy body image.