Eating Disorders
Eating disorders include a series of illnesses that are characterized by irregular eating habits whereby the victims are also afraid of their body shapes and height as well. Categorically, one with an eating disorder will desire to overeat or even eat small amounts of food. Eating disorders are psychological in the way it first affects the brain of an individual especially those in the teenagehood or slightly early adulthood as they are more concerned about how they appear to the world in general. Eating disorders are very dangerous illnesses as once one is into bulk eating, he or she can harm their bodies. Once you consume a lot of food, for instance, you can overwork your body tissues by digesting excess food while excreting waste products at the same time. Once the food is in excess in the body, it is advantageous for the body to absorb nutrients into the body but to a given extent. Excessive eating will lead to more waste products in the collection which when not excreted early, may cause illnesses (Meany, Conceiçã, " Mitchell, 2014). On the other hand, consuming low amounts of food may lead to the desired body shape, but as well as excessive consumption of food, it may lead to deficiencies.
The Types of Eating Disorders
The eating disorders are binge eating, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa is a condition in both males and females in which they are engaged into the low consumption of food due to the excessive fear of gaining weight and also particular body shapes (Wilfley, Bishop, Wilson, " Agras, 2007). Such people are with the condition are underweight but instead, think that they are overweight. When the affected continues with this eating disorder, they are later subjected into numerous diseases such as heart disease; organ failure due to low intake of nutrients, brain damage among other issues which are severe hence may lead to death.
Binge eating disorder is a condition whereby a person either male or female irrespective of race, engage in uncontrollable eating behaviors’. The affected tent to consume large quantities of food and at the same time, they do not participate in activities that may relieve the energy (Kessler et al., 2013). Because such people are lazy, most of them become obese and are attached to cardiovascular diseases. In return, due to the lack of control on the amount of food to consume, those affected are often stressed, extraordinarily embarrassed and have the guilty conscience.
Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder condition whereby; people tend to engage in binge eating continuously. Unlike binge eating here the victims are involved in strenuous activities to ease out their potential. Such people are involved in excessive exercises which may lead to them getting severe dehydration. The affected also use diuretics hence encouraging forced loosing of some nutrients and water which is a bad thing. Those diagnosed with bulimia nervosa have the feelings of shame and guilt on their shoulders. The shame is brought to them by the fact that they are unable to practice their eating in public but do it in the secrecy of others.
Eating Disorders on Different Groups
However, some articles describe eating disorders contrary to the discussion in the first paragraph. Eating disorders are not only associated with the teens but somewhat Caucasian women who are highly educated and living in the higher social and economic class. The theory says that Eating disorders are far much more associated with the Western people and not any other race. Also, female ballet dancers are mostly linked with eating disorders. The entire ballet fraternity is extremely afraid of weight because of the way peers look at one another (Austin, Nelson, Birkett, Calzo, " Everett, 2013). Eating disorders in ballet dancing by females are also highly caused by viewers who suppress them to look thin.
Furthermore, women from the lesbian and bisexual fraternity will be most affected by eating disorders. Consequently, gay men are also prone to getting mixed up on the subject of eating disorders. The theory argues that gay men who are mainly single tend to be stressed and that effect pressures them to consume small quantities of food leading to them thinning excessively (Yean et al., 2013). On the other hand, some of the gay men who are in a relationship are more comfortable and are involved in the massive eating disorder of bulimia nervosa. Another contradicting perspective is that a good percentage of people who term themselves as vegetarians are at high risk of struggling with eating disorders. The theory is right in the fact that taking vegetables and avoiding animal products is a form of nutrition which limits one from eating and lands people to eating disorders.
The Impact of Eating Disorders
Mostly, eating disorders originate primarily in the brain of the individual. For example, when a thin person is made fun of by his peers due to their tiny bodies, they may be obsessed and stressed to the event of eating too much food. On a different perspective, if the thin person felt bullied by peers, the same thing would happen to lead him to an eating disorder. On the contrary, if a thick lady is befriended by moderately thin ladies who have boyfriends and she is single, she may be stressed too. Once she sees the problem from such a perspective, depending on her self-esteem which in this case may be low, she is most likely to engage in an eating disorder.
Eating disorders bring out situations that are very detrimental to someone's life and are hence very deadly in real life if no procedures for treatment are well taken into consideration early in advance (Stice, Becker, " Yokum, 2013). Eating disorders are linked with other psychological problems like anxiety, depression, and even engagement in substance use. For instance, a person who is afraid of gaining weight will always be anxious about what meals and nutrition to follow throughout their entire course of life. On the same issue, those that want to lose weight will be eager on the time frame they are objected to for results.
On depression, a person who is overweight may be neglected by friends in the social circle they live in. Being ignored by friends leads to the person thinking a lot about what may have triggered his fellows from being friends. In return, such a person will be stressed as there virtually no circle to mingle and share ideas within particular. In conjunction with depression, the victim of being secluded will engage in drugs and substance use to try to cope with their way of loneliness. Substance use here comes in to act as a way of the individual having his own company which is very dangerous as there will be lifelong consequences.
Treatment of Eating Disorders
Treatment of eating disorders has numerous approaches which include medical care and follow-up, medication, and utilization of a nutritionist. Medicinal consideration can be given to those who have eating disorders to counter health problems caused. Medical care is also offered to cure other external factors that may have come in due to binge eating such as depression and substance use. Treatment for the external psychological factors such as anxiety and depression comes first before even beginning to deal with the disorder itself. Therefore, eating disorders take quite a while to be treated and the treatment should, therefore, be administered during early stages. Further, due to the occurrence of eating disorders behind closed doors by the victims, it’s thus impossible to apply them early for treatment.
The ability to deviate behavior of those affected together with their attitude is a crucial step to healing them. Families with such people should encourage their people to engage in therapy which may change their feelings of neglect and hence help them improve their attitude towards life generally (Couturier, Kimber, " Szatmari, 2013). However, due to the variable which can be uncontrolled other than behavior and belief, the treatment may not be as effective. Specific theories have explained as to why treatment offered for eating disorders may turn to be ineffective.
There was the theory that despite the treatment that was prescribed to those with eating disorders, it was not an assurance that they were going to follow the procedure to the latter. The assumption that those with eating disorders are mentally ill affirms that those affected by eating disorders could not follow simple prescriptions. Based on the aspect of their mental health, such people could not be treated as most of them would give falsified information about their condition due to shame and guilt that they carry with themselves (Feld, Woodside, Kaplan, Olmsted, " Carter, 2001). After giving a wrong picture of the things they go through during therapy sessions, therapists would then embark on the wrong approach to their client's problems hence not solving anything in particular.
On the contrary to the treatment that is offered to those affected by eating disorders, some of the treatment programs do not work. A study carried out on people who were previously treated for an eating disorder they had shown that some treatments don't work. A woman with an eating disorder after paying a visit to a nutritionist was given a diet which she followed to reach the average weight. She developed the nutrition and ended up being affected by binge eating disorder (Machado et al., 2014). We can see that the treatment of one eating disease may lead to another justifying the fact that treatment may not be specific.
Eating disorders are a health issue that is mental and thus must be taken seriously as it is very severe and can lead to death. Treatment should focus more on the individual by first getting to know their attitude and behavior towards their daily life. By understanding the affected, a clear means of treatment is then put forward to counter what faces them.
References
Austin, S. B., Nelson, L. A., Birkett, M. A., Calzo, J. P., " Everett, B. (2013). Eating disorder symptoms and obesity at the intersections of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation in US high school students. American journal of public health, 103(2), e16-e22.
Couturier, J., Kimber, M., " Szatmari, P. (2013). Efficacy of family‐based treatment for adolescents with eating disorders: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 46(1), 3-11.
Fairburn, C. G., " Harrison, P. J. (2003). Eating disorders. The Lancet, 361(9355), 407-416.
Feld, R., Woodside, D. B., Kaplan, A. S., Olmsted, M. P., " Carter, J. C. (2001). Pretreatment motivational enhancement therapy for eating disorders: A pilot study. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 29(4), 393-400
Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P. A., Chiu, W. T., Deitz, A. C., Hudson, J. I., Shahly, V., ... " Bruffaerts, R. (2013). The prevalence and correlates of binge eating disorder in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys. Biological Psychiatry, 73(9), 904-914.
Machado, P. P., Martins, C., Vaz, A. R., Conceição, E., Bastos, A. P., " Gonçalves, S. (2014). Eating disorder examination questionnaire: psychometric properties and norms for the Portuguese population. European Eating Disorders Review, 22(6), 448-453.
Meany, G., Conceição, E., " Mitchell, J. E. (2014). Binge eating, binge eating disorder and loss of control eating: effects on weight outcomes after bariatric surgery. European Eating Disorders Review, 22(2), 87-91.
Stice, E., Becker, C. B., " Yokum, S. (2013). Eating disorder prevention: Current evidence‐base and future directions. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 46(5), 478-485.
Wilfley, D. E., Bishop, M. E., Wilson, G. T., " Agras, W. S. (2007). Classification of eating disorders: Toward DSM‐V. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 40(S3).
Yean, C., Benau, E., Dakanalis, A., Hormes, J. M., Perone, J., " Timko, A. (2013). The relationship of sex and sexual orientation to self-esteem, body shape satisfaction, and eating disorder symptomatology. Frontiers in psychology, 4, 887
