Literature Review Anorexia

Incidences of Anorexia Nervosa have appeared to increase sharply in the USA, UK and western European countries since the beginning of the 60s (Gordon, 2001). The increasing prevalence of the disease has led the World Health Organisation to declare eating disorders a global priority area within adolescent mental health (Becker et al. 2011). Anorexia has in many ways become a modern epidemic (Gordon, 2000) and with a mortality rate of 10% per decade (Gorwood et al. 2003), the highest of any mental disorder (Bulik et al. 2006), it is an epidemic that social and biological scientists have been working tirelessly to understand.

The study conducted had a sample size of 90 Polish women with AN and the control group was 120 females without any signs of an eating disorder. These females were studied to identify any substantial differences in behavior. The result of the study was that females with AN exhibited less control over cognitive function and emotional behavior. The conclusion reached was that being able to identify the symptoms typical of an eating disorder in females could help in improving treatments and could also prevent any dangerous habits developed by those with

Eating disorders have become an increasing public health problem once thought to be an affliction amongst young women, now an epidemic across culture and gender boundaries. Anorexia gives rise to serious socio-economic and bio-psychological circumstances of our ever vast, growing society. Awareness of eating disorders have increased but perhaps only in proportion to its advancement of its research and treatment. That which still leaves us in a position for a much greater demand for education and heightened awareness of this perplexing disease.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that consists of self-regulated food restriction in which the person strives for thinness and also involves distortion of the way the person sees his or her own body. An anorexic person weighs less than 85% of their ideal body weight. The prevalence of eating disorders is between .5-1% of women aged 15-40 and about 1/20 of this number occurs in men. Anorexia affects all aspects of an affected person's life including emotional health, physical health, and relationships with others (Shekter-Wolfson et al 5-6). A study completed in 1996 showed that anorexics also tend to possess traits that are obsessive in nature and carry heavy emotional

AN (Anorexia Nervosa) is the most visible eating disorder, is a serious psychiatric illness characterized by an inability to maintain a normal healthy body weight or, in individuals who are still growing, despite increasing weight loss and frank emancipation, individuals with AN strive for additional weight loss, see themselves as fat even when they are severely underweight, and often engaged in unhealthy weight loss behaviors (e.g. purging, dieting, excessive exercise, and fasting). (Bulk, Trace, Kleiman and Mazzeo, 2014). AN not only has harmful physical side effects but has psychological impacts as well. According to Serpell, Treasure, Teasdale and Sullivan (1998), one of the most interesting features of anorexia nervosa which sets it apart from many other conditions is highly valued in nature of anorexic symptoms.

Anorexia is more than twice as common in female girls (Morris & Twaddle,2007). Anorexia Nervosa affects every one out of a 100 high school and college girls in the United States (Silverman,2005). Eighty to 90 percent of anorexia patients are females (Morris & Twaddle,2007). Teenage years are the worst for girls because between the ages of 12 to 18 as many as one in 250 girls may develop anorexia (Romeo,1984). Anorexia is most likely to develop when a girl is in middle school (Romeo,1984). What most girls do not know at this time is that their body is going through a growing stage during their teenage years and they need to be gaining weight not losing it. Magazines, advertising, and social media give girls an ideal body type and this causes eating disorders

Many people, mainly woman experience the feeling of being fat. This feeling is a key factor for diagnosing anorexia nervosa (AN). AN is characterized by severe and serious disorders of self-perception of their body and the determined pursuit of thinness. This disorder was first discovered by Morton in 1689. AN was believed to be a form of hysteria but then was thought to be a hereditary abnormality of the central neurological system that only appeared in young females. The term Anorexia Nervosa was established in 1883 by Huchard, and Sigmund Freud hypothesized that anorexia was associated with melancholy and most often it appeared in sexual immature females. AN is appearing more in the recent decades than any decades in the past. This disorder is found amongst both genders but is more prevalent in females. It occurs 10-20 times more in females than it does in males and is mainly in developed countries. (Wozniak, Rekleiti,& Roupa, 2012). Anorexia Nervosa is found to have significant life impairment and a negative effect of Quality of Life. Eating disorders have a higher mortality rate than any other mental illness. The low recovery rate and high mortality rate is worse in restricting Anorexia Nervosa than any other eating disorder. (Sy, 2013.) According to the DSM-IV-TR handbook some criterions for this disorder are as follows, criterion A (“the refusal to maintain a body weight

These blogs and sites are referred to as ‘pro ana’ in reference to pro anorexia diet tips and horrifyingly low caloric intake suggestions. Pro-ana and pro-mia websites are comparatively new media which illustrate extreme forms of thin ideals. These websites are not created to help with recover from bulimia or anorexia, but designed to offer a community of support for those living with these diseases and often times even encourage visitors of the sites to embrace or view these disorders as a lifestyle. Exposure to these straightforward thin-ideal messages on pro-ana websites lead to people focusing more on their own weight, eating behavior, and aids in stimulating feelings of body dissatisfaction. With correlational studies performed, it suggests that viewing pro-ana and thinspiration websites are linked with higher levels of body image disturbances, a higher desire for thinness, and a higher drive for perfection compared to females who have not viewed a pro-ana blog or website. After a study over 1,200 pro-ana users was performed, it revealed that these young women reported weight control behaviors like binging and purging, raise levels of eating disorder pathology, and these users displayed extremely low levels of quality of life (Delforterie). In similar regards, the websites also include support from others trying to lose a drastic amount of weight in a short period of time by encouraging each other to continue starving in order to reach desired results. Pro-eating disorder websites are easily accessible and there is a wide variety of them. The risks that come along with these websites (reinforcing and encouraging disordered eating behaviors) have been the main concern and a problem with these expanding websites. In February 2011, using Google Adwords Keywords, a series of search terms were entered to initiate

This research paper discusses why anorexia nervosa is a disease and not a lifestyle choice. The paper explains what anorexia nervosa is and the misconceptions people have about it which leads them to blame those with AN. These misconceptions can result from a misunderstanding of what AN is, particularly due to the pro-ana movement which promotes AN as a positive lifestyle choice. It then brings down the biological factors behind anorexia nervosa and the awful symptoms those with AN suffer through. The paper contains a lot of in depth understanding of the inner pain an anorexic person goes through and it includes quotes from personal narratives such as Emily Troscianko’s (2010) “Portrait of Hunger” and excerpts from

Eleven million women in the United States suffer from eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa (Dunn, 1992). There are different types of media that exist: television, advertisements, billboards, websites, magazines and so on. Advertisements, television programs, billboards, or magazines are omnipresent. These advertisements have a negative impact when it comes to the lives of many people. The media consists of many instruments that can be used to gain control because it has impacted many people and creates a sense of normality. Media generates a negative message for many young and adult women by portraying an “ideal” body type which can develop symptoms of develop

Anorexia Nervosa is one of the most prevalent disorders that afflict women, where between 0.5 to 4.0 of all females in Western countries develop it in their lifetime. Victims of anorexia are obsessed with becoming thin and practice refraining from consuming food as well as cycling through bingeing and purging. The question arises if all women in Western society will at one point be fated to struggle with an eating disorder. Even more frightening is the fact that many young women and adolescents are affected by anorexia and are at risk for the various medial problems that result from the disorder. In this paper, I will be discussing my personal experience with certain traits of the disorder, as well as why I believe that anorexia and eating disorders in general perhaps are so prevalent.

Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa is a serious issue in the world today. I feel that the issue of eating disorders does not gain enough attention from society especially because of its relevance to young females. These unhealthy eating habits are a social injustice issue because the various types of media that disperse an unrealistic image of female beauty. Society takes these images as a standard of how a woman should look. Women will go to the extreme to meet those qualifications to fit society’s female image.

"Food can become such a point of anxiety - not because it's good, but just because you have anxiety. That's how eating disorders develop."-Vanessa Carlton. Dietary problems influence an undeniably vast number of individuals, particularly young people, in today's advanced society. The most common sorts of this issue are anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia generally happens when an individual declines to consume, takes diuretics to decrease weight, or causes him or herself to regurgitate any nourishment that he or she has consumed. Bulimia includes gorging on food and afterward making oneself throw up. Both sorts are mental issues in which the individual misperceives his or her real weight and expects that weight must be lost in place for the individual

Another long-term study was performed in which 84 patients were monitored after their first time being hospitalized due to them having Anorexia Nervosa. It was found that almost half of the patients reached full recovery, 10.4% met the same criteria for Anorexia Nervosa, and that 15.6% had died from anorexia reasons.(8) The part of the study that is of main interest is in regards to those who died from anorexia causes, as many of the causes of deaths were biologically and psychologically related. The causes of death for the 12 patients included bronchial pneumonia (infection of the bronchioles), sepsis, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and suicide.(8) Many people would expect that those who suffer from Anorexia Nervosa would typically

Hudson, Hirripi, Pope and Kessler’s (2007) research indicates that the average onset of anorexia nervosa is 19 years old, but can develop as young as 14 years old, and women are more likely to develop anorexia nervosa than men. Some studies indicate that anorexia affects whites more than Hispanics, African Americans and Asians; however it crosses cultures and socially diverse populations (APA, 2013). According to the DSM 5, Anorexia nervosa predominantly occurs in developed, high-income countries such as in the United States, as well as in many European countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Individuals who present with weight concerns that develop eating and feeding disorders varies substantially across cultural contexts. One study indicated that that “the ‘spread’ of Western values regarding slimness (fat phobia) is primarily responsible for the development of anorexia nervosa in non-Western societies” (Rieger et al., 2001). Rieger et al (2001) also looked at the medical records of Asian women and found the absence of fat phobia; the rationale for dietary restriction was commonly related to other external factors. The WHO (2004) also reports that female athletes, ballet students, fashion models and culinary students are at risk of developing anorexia nervosa; unhealthy dieting and society’s