Critical Analysis of Eating Disorders in Women

Eating Disorders

The researcher had the opportunity on collecting and gathering critical information on eating disorders. What is an eating disorder you my ask? As defined in the oxford school dictionary it is defined as “any range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits (such as anorexia nervosa). This article summary is going to be a detailed outline of the information of eating disorders in women. There are a large number of persons who suffer from eating disorders, 90% of which are females. Older women who suffer with this disorder, tend to keep it a secret and don’t feel the need to speak up about it. Which leads to them not seeking any assistance. This usually happens because woman fear gaining weight and being branded, as having a “Teenage Disorder”.

Older woman have suffered with eating disorders for many years, while for others the problem is new. In recent years clinicians and treatment centers reported that they had seen a uprise of older woman, requesting help for these diseases. This article summary will be going into details about eating disorders. The types of eating disorders, what can cause these disorders to emerge or reappear and lastly how can these disorders be treated. Surveys that were conducted throughout the years indicated that, although these disorders in young women were reported more often, it dramatically increased in older woman of ages 45-65 in Australia. This survey was also conducted in Canada as well, but it is said that woman from these age groups, were most likely to feel guilty about eating and were more likely to rampage on food, compared to the younger ones.

There are many types of eating disorders. This article explains each one and gives detailed information about them. The types of eating disorders are as followed: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge-eating Disorder. The word anorexia comes from a two-part Greek word, which means “without appetite”. These types of individuals are scared of gaining weight and they eventually convinced themselves that they are too fat, when in fact they are malnourished. In the result they starve themselves to where they endanger their lives. in server cases of anorexia nervosa patients grow life threatening difficulties, such of which include, kidney failure, liver failure and cardiac arrhythmias. This disorder is known to be one of the deadliest psychiatric disorders.

Bulimia nervosa is another type of eating disorder which consist of binge-eating. This then forces some kind compensatory action to dodge the gaining of weight. “Researchers estimate that one to three women out of 100 will develop bulimia nervosa at some point in their lives. In men, the rate of diagnosis is only about one-tenth the rate in women”. (Harvard Health Publications, Mar 2012). Binge eating involves eating a large amount of food, within a time frame which usually consist of two hours.

All the disorders previously stated are said to have a subtype as stated from the DMS-IV these goas as followed: Anorexia Nervosa subtypes are the restricting subtype and the binge-eating subtype. Bulimia Nervosa subtype would include the purging and nonpurging subtype. Binge-eating disorder, people who have these types of disorders usually hide due to the sense of feeling guilty or ashamed. This disorder can cause an individual to be overweight or obese. This disorder may never be recognized. Many older women don’t usually fit the strict descriptions for having an eating disorder, yet the deserve treatment.

In most cases, Eating Disorders may appear and reappear later in a woman’s life, for numerous reasons. Our first being Grief, this is inevitable in someone’s life, we are likely to lose someone we once loved. Usually adult woman uses Mourning to cope with grief; this could take away their ability to eat or have an appetite for food. Purging food can be a stress reliver in this situation. Secondly, is Divorce this may consist of loss and grief, this may make the women feel insecure about their bodies comparing themselves to other singles and younger woman, this can result in excessive eating or malnourishment. Another factor could include the Heightened awareness of aging, this factor consists of females coming back to work or school past the retirement age with a different appearance. Lastly, Medical Illnesses. Woman tend to lose weight due to short term illnesses. Sometimes they receive compliments, and this may cause them to decrease their food intake so that they could keep their slender figure.

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Eating Disorders may cause many illnesses such include: Dental Problems, Heartbeats that are Irregular (arrhythmias), or osteoporosis, which is a common difficulty of eating disorders. In females that are older it may case vomiting, which is forced, and this may result in a medical emergency. If this is severe it could cause the stomach to rapture or tear in the esophagus, which at this time will need professional attention. However, woman's priorities may shift due to time and energy. A reality of life might hit them as a unrelated health scare, death of a loved one, or other event. this may cost a woman may finally decide that enough is enough and seek treatment.

The purpose of treating these types of eating disorders are so that we could aid these women in achieving healthy weight, exercise level, and eating patterns; by doing so we could eradicate binge eating and purging as well. A Nutritionist, Mental Health Professional or Clinicians are responsible in aiding these women who are going through this. Upon my research I stumbled upon ways to help prevent or treat these types of disorders. These are Psychotherapy, Nutrition Rehabilitation, Medication and Hospitalization. Psychotherapy is the way to help an individual to talk about their problems and help them come up with a solution. Nutritional Rehabilitation can be a dietitian or a Nutritional Counselor who can help woman recover and learn about their eating disorders, they also motivate you to start eating healthier and advises you on the changes need to make that step. Medications such as Fluoxetine (Prozac) is the only prove medication to work for treating eating disorders. Lastly, they can be treated on an outpatient basis in the hospital. This is usually recommended if a woman is seriously underweight.

The author of this article is clearly speaking about what is an Eating Disorder, What causes this disorder to happen, the different types of disorders and their subtypes, and lastly how can these disorders be treated and prevented.

In my text eating disorder is said to be caused by excessive dieting, restricting certain foods and a disorder body dissatisfaction. It goes to state how the disorder is caused because people fear gaining weight. The age for females getting this disorder is usually 15-19. My notes state anorexia to be a eating disorder characterized by the maintenance of the body weight well below average though starvation and or excessive exercise. For example, my notes talk about Dysmorphia this is a distorted body image. This is when a person looks in the mirror, they believe themself to be overweight. My text also talks about Bulimia, which is another eating disorder, where a person engages in binge eating behavior that is followed by an attempt to compensate for the large amount of food consumed in two hours’ time. Bing is another eating disorder which consist of a person eating foods that are unhealthy for a specific period of time and then use some kind of compulsory behavior to rid the body of all the calories it might of consumed. Finally, is the Binge eating disorder with is where he/she does not use compensatory behavior to rid the body of extra calories. they are guilty and embarrassed.

The magazine article relates to the course in many ways talking about eating disorders. The article explains more on older women but also states types of eating disorders giving definitions and examples. these eating disorders consist of Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. The magazine article goes and talks about ways in which can trigger such disorder to occur. Finally, the article explains ways in which you can get help for eating disorder. All of this information was related to the course and helped me to understand the topic better. this magazine article relates to the course with the detailed information and explanation of this topic teaches us a little more than we already knew. It also expands my knowledge on the topic with other interesting facts and formation on eating disorder, the information in this article was helpful in my understanding on eating disorder and did not conflict with the information i already knew.

the magazine article made me understand how important and serious eating disorders can be. i never use to take the disorders seriously because I just thought it was an easy fix by just eating more food. However, I know that this is something that has a mental, physical and emotion effect on the individual. This magazine article expands my knowledge by stating the ways in which you can try to treat eating disorders. in addition to this the article talks about how eating disorders may reappear in someone’s life. this made me understand how the study of psychology is important by teaching me how important the mind can be and what effects it can carry once damage. this article shows me how psychology should be taken seriously and if it wasn’t for certain psychologist certain disorders would never exist meaning that the cure would never be found as well. the study of psychology goes deeper than just the mind, but it explores one true nature and how to see the world for what it really is.

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