EATING DISORDERS

Eating Disorders

Eating Disorders

Introduction For most people food is not only a necessity but also a pleasure. This makes eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating, one of the hardest mental illnesses to comprehend. Although clinical descriptions of eating disorders can be traced back many years, Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa appeared in the DSM for the first time in 1980. Anorexia Nervosa is an illness that mainly affects adolescent girls (Stephan et al, 1997). The Patients do not loose appetite but they repress their feeling of hunger. Like patients, people suffering from Bulimia Nervosa are afraid of growing fat. Is an illness most commonly found in girls of later adolescence and early adulthood. Patients in order to avoid weight gain, they will go through food restriction, often vomiting, laxative abuse or excessive exercising. Another eating disorder is Binging eating disorder, which distinguished from Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa by the absence of weight loss and of purging.



Discussion

Within developmental lifespan psychology, eating disorders are often categorised under the heading of 'adolescence problems' along with suicide, delinquency, substance misuse and pregnancy. They are particularly associated with females, especially during the development stage of adolescence when one's physical, cognitive and social development leaves childhood and enters adulthood (Mary et al. 1995). It appears that young women are more dissatisfied with weight than women at any other stage of the female lifespan. This is due to an increase in awareness of their body shape and weight, therefore accounting for the large majority of eating disorder cases being adolescent females (90%). Over the past decades, eating disorders have become relatively well known both to health professionals and to the wider public. Yet in spite of this notoriety, many people have a wrong or incomplete idea of what an eating disorder actually represents. The popular view is that it stands for an 'eating problem', characterized either by overeating and being overweight or by restricted food consumption and emaciation. While this view certainly reflects the clinical features of some eating disorders, it also disregards their clinical complexity and diversity (Stephan Van Den Broucke, 1997).

Like many other psychiatric disorders, EDs show a considerable variation of causes. There are numerous theories for the aetiology of EDs. According to the International Eating Disorder Referral Organization, the development of EDs can be based on Psychological, Sociocultural and Interpersonal factors. While these theories are rarely in conflict and indeed mutually overlapping, suggesting that the cause of eating disorders is just a product of our time and culture would be incomplete (Lisa et al, 1988). Eating disorders as other mental difficulties can be based in interpersonal factors. Researchers showed that a history of sexual, physical or even psychological abuse (e.g. bullying) could lead to the development of eating disorders. Abuse at early age, involving force, and by a family member may bear a stronger relationship to eating disorders (Leslie J. Heinberg, J. Kevin Thompson, 1995).

Hence, as eating disorders are usually a multidimensional problem, information about the patients' position ...