Eating Disorders

Christie Roberts

Psychology 102

Eating Disorders

An eating disorder is a compulsion in which the main problem is a person eats in a way which disturbs their physical health. The eating may be too excessive (compulsive over-eating), too limited (restricting), may include normal eating punctuated with episodes of purging, may include cycles of binging and purging, or may encompass the ingesting of non-foods. ( Dictionary) Most eating disorders start before the age of 20, although anyone of any age can develop them. Many adults even seek perfessional help to help them through their problem. There are three major types of eating disorders, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.

Anorexia Nervosa is the most common eating disorder and has the most drastic appalling results. Estimates are that one of two hundred females from ages 10-30 suffer from anorexia nervosa (Frissell and Harney). A person with the disorder has qualities of low self-esteem, low opinion of her worth as a person, and/or her life feels out of control. The main cause is that a person may have experienced emotional pain at a level of intensity that she does not know how to manage in a healthy way, mainly because she did not learn to express feelings directly while growing up. Other reasons may include A person who suffers from anorexia is one who refuses to maintain a healthy body weight. They have an intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat and strive for perfection. Due to the loss of fat and weight girls/women may suffer repeated missed menstrual cycles. People suffering from anorexia are probably very restrictive in their eating habits. People with anorexia are actually obsessed with food, buy cookbooks and even cook huge extravagant meals, however they refuse to eat and excersize excessively. Consequences from the disorder are: lack of menstrual periods, irregular heart beat, electro cardiogram abnormalities, congestive heart failure, acute pancreatitis, crampy abdominal pain, increased lanugo hair (fine body hair), decrease in the amount of oxygen delivered to the arms and legs, constipation, dry skin (often scaly), decreased body temperature, heart rate below 60 beats per minute, swelling of arms and legs (ankles), and anemia.

Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder commonly found in females in late adolescent/