Psychosocial Factors of Anorexia Nervosa

Abstract

Anorexia Nervosa disease has become so active that we need to take necessary steps to bring awareness at societal and cultural level. Due to this disease, people often lose much of their weight even though they have proper meals and also develop a strong fear of weight gain, although they are underweight. This paper aims to discuss the role do psychological and social factors play in the cause of anorexia nervosa. The paper is divided into two sections. As used today, anorexia is an abbreviation of anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder characterized by severe weight loss mainly brought about by restricting one's intake of food to a level much below that required to maintain body weight that is normal for one's height, age, and sex. Formerly, anorexia meant loss of appetite and was defined as such in nineteenth-century medical dictionaries. It was acknowledged as a symptom of a range of physical illnesses, rather than as constituting an illness in its own right. Anorexia was also observed to occur among the mentally ill, and forced feeding of severely underweight patients was practiced in mental asylums. During the later decades of the nineteenth century, an interest in the classification of mental illnesses developed apace with the idea that asylums should have a therapeutic function.

Table of Contents

Abstract2

Section A: The Review4

Introduction4

Risk Factors, Causes and Occurrence Observed6

A Growing Epidemic8

Psychosocial Factors and Issues Associated With Anorexia Nervosa9

Social Factors and Issues Associated With Anorexia Nervosa10

Psychological Diagnoses of Anorexia Nervosa12

Current Research13

Current Treatment Strategies13

Section B: Reflection on the Topic14

References17

Psychosocial Factors of Anorexia Nervosa

Section A: The Review

Introduction

Anorexia nervosa is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR). It is a type of disordered eating that is characterized by refusal to maintain a normal body weight (less than 85% of expected weight), intense fear of gaining weight (in spite of being underweight), a disturbed self-evaluation of body shape, and three consecutive cycles of amenorrhea.

There are also two specific subtypes of anorexia nervosa: (1) a restricting type and (2) a binge-eating/purging type. In restricting-type anorexia nervosa, the athlete does not regularly engage in self-induced vomiting or the use of laxatives or diuretics. In the binge-eating/purging type, people do engage in these types of behaviors.

Anorexia nervosa is poorly named, since loss of appetite is not among the symptoms of people now classified as suffering from this disorder. Rather, they generally report feelings of hunger and of the need to control appetite, self-starvation being the practice that distinguishes them. Until the mid-twentieth century, anorexia nervosa was generally thought to be a relatively rare illness, mainly affecting young women from middle- or upper-class families. Research reports largely focused on case presentations, diagnoses, treatments, and discussion of its causes, there being little indication that the incidence of this disorder was rising (American Psychiatric Association, 2006).

Although anorexia nervosa is classified today as a psychiatric disorder and distinguished from other eating disorders, diagnostic criteria are currently under revision and appropriate treatments are contested among clinicians ...