Eating Disorders�����Module 5.4d

LEARNING TARGETS:

• What are the three main eating disorders?
• How do biological, psychological, and social cultural influences make people more vulnerable to them?

Eating Disorders

• Anorexia nervosa - drop significantly below weight, irrational fear of gaining weight and distorted body image
• Bulimia nervosa - characterized by binges of extreme overeating followed by self-induced purging such as vomiting, laxatives, excessive exercise
• Weight fluctuations within normal ranges
• Binge-eating - disorder characterized by recurring episodes of binge eating without purging followed by remorse.

Anorexia Nervosa�Key Features

1. Refusal to maintain a normal body weight
2. Intensely afraid of being overweight.
3. Suffer from delusions of being overweight.
4. Denies there is a problem.
5. Intensely concerned with how others perceive them
1. Usually in adolescent females
2. May put themselves on self-starvation regimens
3. May become dangerously underweight

Anorexia

• Unhealthy way to cope with emotional problems, perfectionism, and a desire for control.
• Often equate self-worth with how thin you are. You are never thin enough.
• Most deadly of all psychological disorders. Malnutrition does permanent damage to body organs, leading to death.

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Anorexia - Red Flags

• Skipping meals
• Making excuses for not eating
• Rigid eating rituals, like cutting food into small pieces, or counting food
• Weighing food
• Cooking for others but not eating themselves
• Repeatedly weighing self
• Wearing baggy or layered clothes
• Complaining about being fat

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Psychological Explanation

• It is a way to control a portion of one’s life, particularly when other parts of life seem out of control.
• There is self hate – prevents person from seeing
• May have OCD traits that make it easier to stick to diets and forgo food even when hungry.
• May have extreme drive for perfectionism, so they are never thin enough.

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Biological Explanation

• Possible genetic predisposition, especially with traits towards perfectionism, sensitivity, and perseverance – all associated with anorexia.
• Hereditability of 50-60% for Anorexia
• Brain scans reveal high levels of serotonin in brains of anorexics.
• Serotonin hinders appetite.
• Serotonin may help deal with anxiety.

Socio-Cultural Explanation

• Western culture promotes thinness.
• Success and worth are equated to being thin.
• This is true for actors, dancers, models, athletes, and generalized to most jobs.
• Our society discriminates against overweight people.
• Peer pressure – kids can be cruel.

Men’s & Women’s Body Images

Women tend to want their bodies to be thinner and feel that is where men would like their bodies to be. When in reality men tend to prefer a body closer to what women are actually at. �Men tend to think they are already at the ideal body type that want them to be close to that or slightly heavier (more muscle)

Family Environment

• Mothers who focus on their own weight and their daughter’s weight as well
• Highly competitive, high achieving, overly protective

Complications

• More than 5% diagnosed die.
• Death can occur suddenly from heart arrhythmias, failure or electrolyte imbalance.
• Bone loss
• Lung problems resembling emphysema
• Kidney problems
• Every organ sustains damage, including the brain, when severely malnourished. Damage is not fully reversible.

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Bulimia Nervosa

• An eating disorder characterized by episodes of overeating – binge eating (usually high calorie foods)
• Overeating is followed by purging - vomiting, using laxatives, fasting, or excessive exercise
• Usually stay within their normal weight.
• Usually recognize they have an eating disorder.
• Common to live in a world of secret shame and self-disgust.
• No-purging bulimia uses fasting or over exercising.

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Bulimia - Symptoms

• Physical symptoms
• Damaged teeth and gums, swollen salivary glands, sores in throat and mouth, bloating, dehydration, fatigue, dry skin, irregular heartbeat, knuckles with cores, scars or calluses, puffy cheeks
• Emotional and behavioral symptoms
• Constant dieting, binge eating alone, eating to discomfort, going to bathroom after eating, hoarding food, depression, anxiety, disappearing food

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Binge Eating �Disorder

• Compulsive overeating – consuming huge amounts of food while feeling out of control and powerless to stop
• Typically last 2 hours or on and off all day
• Gorge themselves as fast as they can barely realize what they are eating or tasting
• Feel extremely distressed after binging - guilt, disgust, depression
• No attempt to make-up for the overeating
• Desperately want to stop but can’t.
• It’s a food addiction.

Pica�Strange but True!

• Hippocrates the first to describe the disorder
• People display a compulsive craving for inedible substances such as clay, dirt, laundry starch, chalk, buttons, paper, dried paint, burnt matches, ashes, sand, oyster shells or broken crockery.
• Seen most often in pregnant women or nursing women but also with people with severe mental disorders.
• Could be a behavioral response to stress.
• Usually caused by malnourishment. Body craves what it needs.