Anorexia Nervosa

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Anorexia Nervosa

One of the most common eating disorders in the world is anorexia nervosa. A patient who suffers from anorexia nervosa loses at least fifteen percent of the normal minimum weight. Anorexia nervosa incidences are increasing these days with many cases recorded for the past few decades. In every 100,000 persons, there are between eight to thirteen cases of people suffering from anorexia disorders. For instance, statistics show that nearly seven thousand people in Hong Kong suffer from anorexia nervosa. Moreover, anorexia nervosa is more prevalent among girls under adolescent between the ages of 15 to 20 years of age who are a high risk. Moreover, more than 95% of people suffering from anorexia nervosa are females. Anorexia nervosa, and according to research it normally starts affecting adolescent girls from the age young age of around 13 years all through their entire life up to around 20 years of age. As a result, this essay will target the cases of the adolescent girls between 15 to 20 years of age as they have higher risk or have the problem already. Individuals experiencing eating disorder at times find it difficult to differentiate between what is either normal or abnormal. Anorexia nervosa has many behaviors and thoughts among them body image distortion, inability of maintaining healthy body weights, eating habits that are scarce and fear of eating due to weight gain (Bryson, 2014).

Anorexia nervosa may not have huge impacts compared to other diseases in the world but it has serious problems to affected individuals. It causes physical illnesses such as problems associated with stomach, insomnia, fainting of individuals, loss of appetite, loss of weight, extraversion and interruption of regular menstruation cycle. During the adolescent stage, women with anorexia nervosa develop more slowly compared to their normal peers. Moreover, their intelligence is affected as well. Besides that, the above signs and symptoms of anorexia nervosa result to behavior problems such as delinquency and drug abuse disorder such as alcohol. Furthermore, some psychological effects related to anorexia nervosa show that the disorder my last in the whole life time of the affected individual causing problems such as mood swings, panic disorder, social phobia and high rates of anxiety. Girls under adolescent stage experience the problem while young, which is likely to continue into their adulthood lives. Some patients go to the extent of hurting themselves in order to get rid of the psychology pain because the depression and suffering they go through. Some studies have suggested that anorexia patients are likely to commit suicide as well (Sawyer, 2014).

So far, there exist many researches as to what the main cause of anorexia nervosa among adolescent young females are. The researches have been conducted from different perspectives that include biological causes, psychological issues and the social cultural aspects together with analysis levels among them different individuals, societal and the relational factors. At this time, there are numerous analyses of psychology involving anorexia nervosa among adolescent girls with primary literatures adopting quantitative methods that study the disorder phenomena. Furthermore, the most new method and innovation that is directly related to the problem is commercial influence. It is important to note the media has played a crucial role in influencing the lifestyle of many people through their commercials. However, few researchers have tried to show how commercials affect youths in abnormal eating choices. For instance, radio and television stations advertise numerous times on weight losing products. Moreover, magazines have numerous articles advising about the abnormal eating and dieting patterns teaching young women on how to get thinner. The main reason why the media commercials target young women is that they are considered relatively as irrational consumers. The advertisements just utilize the psychology effects among the young females (Antoine, 2014).

Due to the numerous commercial advertisements that influence the adolescent females, they eventually become crazy about their figures thus developing the abnormal eating habits. Primarily, self-perception about body image is crucial to the anorexia nervosa. The reason why body image is important to adolescent women is that this is the puberty stage. Adolescent young women with distortions that are cognitive with their weight and dieting, their body image and figure will probably experience anorexia nervosa problems. Secondly, when young adolescent women see the commercials, all they want is change their diets in order to be like models they see in the media thus forgetting and ignoring their real self. This makes them want to achieve and have model-like body shapes devoid of judging themselves objectively. The real discrepancy is between getting and having the desired ideal body and the perceived body figure. According to a research that asked young adolescent women to choose three types of figures in the pictures included the one liked most by males, one they thought is herself and the one they wanted to be like. The irony is that most females regarding themselves as the ideal ones were fatter. Cognitive theories connected the expectations of adolescent women to the internal determinants and the environment. This indicates that values and the media commercials are examples of external determinants factors that affect the behavior. During the adolescent stage, the beliefs of many women influence their various performance aspects. That is why they make abnormal dieting choices thus engaging and devoting major to this kind of behavior. Moreover, the adolescent is unrelenting in pursuing these activities that in turn strengthens their emotional reactions more so during the process. In addition, that is why many girls develop these unusual eating habits and they end up becoming victims of anorexia nervosa (Touyz, 2014).

The social learning theory is another explanation why many adolescent girls develop the anorexia nervosa. Since cognitive processes affect our behavior and so, the observation alone of other people’s behavior affects the decision of young adolescent women. Thus, they end up wanting to become thinner and the situation is evident in the modern society as many adolescent women want to change themselves. Therefore, commercials act as a good source where they learn from and they completely change their eating habits or their entire lifestyle. Many adolescent women have peer groups that have numerous impacts on them. For instance, when one woman talks about a certain beauty product they saw in the commercials that talks about becoming more skinny, all the other women in that peer group become affected and they are likely to get influenced to try and use the product (Kaprio, 2014).

I am the lead therapist supporting a group of anorexia nervosa patients that consists of young adolescent females aged between 15 to 20 years. As the lead therapist, I offer counseling services to the young women. Besides counseling, I offer emotional support to a group of young adolescent women from both leaders and members of the group. As the lead therapist, I also include statistics that consists of the counseling groups that are in the eating disorder field. I proven to offer more help than others do because it is a closed group. It remains a closed group because it has specific members on specific period. The group is also involuntary as we emphasize and protect confidentiality of the patients, their safety and sense of the community. My main aim for the group is to learn and incorporate new coping mechanisms and acquire the necessary emotional support for the anorexia nervosa patients.

As the lead therapist, the group of young adolescent women is in the induction phase. This is the phase that members have recently begun meeting together. During the second session, members should be familiar to one another having learned the names of other colleagues. This session provides time to gain some common working ground towards achieving our goals as a group. The group is guided by the vision board activities that allow members to know about one another. This enhances cutting up of magazines facilitating creation of a board that is full of the future dreams. Moreover, no pictures of people or models are included in the vision board. It specifies only words, the emotions of the patients and places. This is in accordance with how one wants to feel, who they want to be and where they are going. The specific goal is starting of on activities that are positive enhancing promotion of excitement and creativity.

References

Le Grange, D., Accurso, E. C., Lock, J., Agras, S., & Bryson, S. W. (2014). Early weight gain predicts outcome in two treatments for adolescent anorexia nervosa. International Journal Of Eating Disorders, 47(2), 124-129.

Hughes, E. K., Le Grange, D., Court, A., Yeo, M. M., Campbell, S., Allan, E., & ... Sawyer, S. M. (2014). Parent-focused treatment for adolescent anorexia nervosa: a study protocol of a randomised controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry, 14(1), 1-21.

Doba, K., Nandrino, J., Dodin, V., & Antoine, P. (2014). Is There a Family Profile of Addictive Behaviors? Family Functioning in Anorexia Nervosa and Drug Dependence Disorder. Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 70(1), 107-117.

Griffiths, S., Mond, J. M., Murray, S. B., & Touyz, S. (2014). Young peoples' stigmatizing attitudes and beliefs about anorexia nervosa and muscle dysmorphia. International Journal Of Eating Disorders, 47(2), 189-195.

Keski-Rahkonen, A., Raevuori, A., Bulik, C. M., Hoek, H. W., Rissanen, A., & Kaprio, J. (2014). Factors associated with recovery from anorexia nervosa: A population-based study. International Journal Of Eating Disorders, 47(2), 117-123.