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Unit 8 Dsm5

Decent Essays

Anorexia is a serious mental health condition. It is an eating disorder where people try to keep their body weight as low as possible. DSM5 outlines the key diagnostic features for anorexia. Firstly, people with anorexia will restrict behaviours that promote healthy body weight. This could mean that they are consequentially underweight and this can be due to dieting, exercising and purging. There will also be a significant fear of weight gain, but this fear will not be relieved by weight loss. There will be a persistent fear that interferes with weight gain. Lastly, there will be a disturbed perception of ones weight and/or shape and denial of underweight status and its seriousness. Anorexia accounts for 10% of eating disorders in the UK and has …show more content…

Both are eating disorders and individuals with the disorder both have a fear of weight gain. Patients self worth and evaluation is mainly based on weight and appearance. There is no official cause but both disorders can be related to culture, family, life/history, stressful situations and/or biology. There are concerns about weight and body image. There is a poor body image because of cultures emphasis on thinness. Causes could also involve major stressful life changes or could be because of participation in activities that are appearance orientated such as ballet or modelling. There are also many similarities in behaviour, effects on health, treatment and statistics. Behaviour for individuals with either disorder can include excessive exercise, mood swings, self harm etc. There can be many effects on health whether these are physical (hair loss, dry skin,) psychological (depression, mood swings) and social (isolation/withdrawal.) Patients with anorexia and bulimia will also resist treatment, due to the fear of gaining weight. Statistics show that both disorders can be developed at any age for both males and

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