...Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa Comparison Essay Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are eating disorders that involve serious eating practice that are considered to be very dangerous and even fatal if not corrected. These disorders normally occur as a result failure to lose weight through regular dieting and a desperate desire to lose weight. It is believed that eating disorders are caused by a lack of confidence and satisfaction with one’s self-image and an abnormal desire to fit into the modern day profile of perfect body shape and size. Although they are two separate disorders they share many commonalities and differences. They both are believed to have biological, sociocultural and psychological implications that motivate or stimulate the development of eating disorders (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2011). A maladaptive perception of body size and shape is evident in persons suffering from both anorexia and bulimia who believe that they weigh too much and are too fat or too heavy regardless of their actual weight or appearance (Shisslak, Crago, & Pazda, 1990). The major difference between the two disorders is the criteria established by DSM-IV-TR that defines each disorder; for example with anorexia nervosa, the patient refuses to maintain body weight at or above the minimally weight based on their age and height. They have an intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat even though they are underweight. They are in denial of the seriousness of their low body weight...
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...very bloated and fat. This child did not have an ounce of fat on her. I remember at that time worrying that if this child is concerned about her weight at age eight how will she view her self image in her teenage years and will she result to the extreme measures that her mother has taken to remain slim. There are several types of eating disorders but the two most dangerous ones are Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa. Anorexia People with anorexia have an extreme fear of weight gain and a distorted view of their body size and shape. As a result, they can't maintain a normal body weight. Some people with anorexia restrict their food intake by dieting, fasting, or excessive exercise. They hardly eat at all — and the small amount of food they do eat becomes an obsession (TeensHealth, 2007). Bulimia Bulimia is similar to anorexia. With bulimia, a person binge eats (eats a lot of food) and then tries to compensate in extreme ways, such as forced vomiting or excessive exercise, to prevent weight gain. Over time, these steps can be dangerous. To be diagnosed with bulimia, a person must be binging and purging regularly, at least twice a week for a couple...
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...Eating Disorders: Anorexia and Bulimia Abby looks at herself in the mirror, she turns around and takes a good look at herself, she is thinking “How can I be so fat and everyone else is so skinny?” To top it off Abby is a high school student everyday her situation gets worse and worse. Not only does she feel guilty when she eats, but she also purges it up after she’s done eating. This can be the beginning of an eating disorder called Bulimia Nervosa. Many teens around this age feel insecure about their changing bodies because our society is obsessed with being thin which makes teens want to be thin so they can begin to feel loved and valued. Many times it can also be that they want to look like their favorite actor but the ones who think that need to realize that every individual is different, we all have our different style and taste which makes us have our own unique look. Eating disorders are amongst the most common psychiatric syndromes, this leads to impatient hospitalization and suicide attempts for morality. According to recent studies both anorexia and bulimia are most common in the United States. This research paper will point out the importance of eating disorders: bulimia and anorexia, how the theory “Social comparison” can be used for this topic when comparing the US to other countries that are the opposite of bulimia and anorexia such as force-feeding and will also state how different it is in a little town in Africa called Mauritania and a prison...
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...COMPARE/CONTRRAST FINAL DRAFT ID 3042422866 Anorexia and Bulimia. There is a strong threat to the health of people, mostly these diseases attack chiefly to young people between 15 and 26 years. Anorexia and bulimia are two eating disorders that are increasingly common in our society; the media have the greatest influence on the decisions of individuals, as well as selling the ideal image of a woman very thin and greatly lowering the self-esteem of young people who see it every day. It is true can have similar consequences but characteristics of each are completely opposite, are diseases that occur primarily in females but also men can suffer it. This document will look for the comparison of the two diseases "anorexia and bulimia" comparing the causes, consequences, characteristics and consequences of both. Currently there is no specific cause which can be attributed either eating disorders, there are many factors that influence each of the diseases some are social and cultural. For bulimia, are the main causes such as dysfunctional families, where the family has never paid adequate attention to the person, and they have a low self-esteem. However, the main reason anorexia is social pressure, the pressure that fashion imposes adolescence to sell as role models really thin women. Women who make others think that this is the perfect body the common 90-60-90 all want to have, but yet cannot all do and that leads them to want to lose weight in any way, drifting the wrong way...
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...Luis Cerna WRT-101-095 Revision Today’s Media Influence on Body Image The media today comes in many forms. For example, we have magazines, newspapers, television, radio, and the internet. Having all these elements at one’s disposal is a great asset, but it can also be a manipulator that could blindside consumers. The media has shaped society’s idea of what perfect is and it has definitely changed our idea of what perfect looks like. Exposure to thin female models and muscular built males on a daily basis has created an entirely new culture for the new generations. Having a perfect body not only means being healthy and achieving the perfect physical imagine. Now it also means power, fame, money and most of all attention. Today media has a negative influence on our body image. Body image is not only about how a person physically looks but also how the individual feels about himself. How society presents not only a perfect body but a healthy one, the ideals have tremendously changed in the past decade. Now we are being forced to meet unrealistic body types and looks in order to fit in and love ourselves. The media exposes super model images on television, ads, magazines and even the radio making us believe these deceptive images. According to article Food and Body Image, in a 1992 article in the Journal of Communication, it was estimated that on average adolescents see more than 5,260 “attractiveness messages” each year. And according to the American College of Obstetricians...
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...cravings or aversions to certain food-stuffs while a small number indulge in pica, the consumption of non-nutritious substances such as soap or clay (Dickens & Trethowan, 1971). These disturbances usually remit after delivery and rarely give rise to physical complications for mother or foetus. However, more serious and chronic eating disorders including bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa may also occur during pregnancy. These conditions are most prevalent among women of childbearing age and some evidence suggests that both disorders can also be precipitated by pregnancy (Weinfeld et al. 1977; Price et al. 1986). The prevalence of eating disorders among pregnant women is unknown, but the low body weight and sexual inactivity of anorexic women suggests that this disorder is much less common than in the general population. Markedly reduced fertility rates have been confirmed in long-term outcome studies of these patients (Brinch et al. 1988). Comparable data are not available for bulimia, but most of these patients are of normal weight and they are more likely to be married than anorexics. Although the prevalence rate for bulimia in women is approximately 1 % (King, 1986; JohnsonSabine et al. 1988), and partial syndromes are also common, no cases were reported in a random series of 119 primigravidae (Kumar & Robson, 1984) or in 92 obstetric patients referred for assessment by a liaison psychiatrist (Appleby et al. 1989). Such low rates of diagnosis may be due to the reluctance of...
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...William Kuschner SOC 228 Over the past few decades, there has been a great increase in the prevalence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. This increase in eating disorders has resulted from the intense societal pressure to diet and conform to an unrealistic weight and body size. For the general population of women, the lifetime prevalence of anorexia nervosa is approximately 0.7%, and that of bulimia nervosa is as high as 10.3%. Since many athletes contain similar behaviors to those with eating disorders, there has also been an increase in interest in whether athletes are at a risk for eating disorders. An increased risk of eating disorders among athletes has been proposed for several reasons. For starters, athletes tend to exemplify many personality characteristics such as perfectionism and striving for high achievement which is found in patients with eating disorders. Other factors include high self-expectation, competitiveness, compulsiveness, drive, self-motivation, and great pressure to be thin. In order to improve performance, athletes may need to maintain a strong control and constantly monitor their body shape. This behavior has been identified as a risk factor for both anorexia and bulimia. In addition to the societal pressure to be thin, athletes have extra pressure for increased performance and ranking, which make them more cautious of their body size and shape, leading them to become more susceptible for eating disorders. Although these characteristics...
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...body dissatisfaction displayed by both men and women may be due to social comparison processes involving media images of body types that few can achieve. Disordered eating patterns because of preoccupation with weight and body dimensions sometimes become extreme and lead to an eating disorder – anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge-eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa is characterized by low body weight, and an intense fear of becoming obese, and body image distortion. Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating at least once a week for three months, during which the person loses control over eating. Binge-eating disorder is similar to bulimia nervosa in that it involves the consumption of large amounts of food within a two-hour period, an accompanying feeling of loss of control, and “marked distress” over eating during the episode. (Sue, 2013 Pgs. 279, 283, 285) Many people with anorexia nervosa see themselves as overweight, even when they are clearly underweight. Eating, food, and weight control become obsessions. People with anorexia nervosa typically weigh themselves repeatedly, portion food carefully, and eat very small quantities of only certain foods. Some people with anorexia nervosa may also engage in binge-eating followed by extreme dieting, excessive exercise, self-induced vomiting, and/or misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas. Some who have anorexia nervosa recover with treatment after only one episode. Others get well but...
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...Andrea Muller SCI/241 September 12, 2014 Cindy Davis Body Fat and Eating Disorders Paper When a person carries too much or excess body in comparison to the lean muscle mass, it calls for an unhealthy body. As the body fat-to-lean ratio increases, so does your health risks. In fact, more often than not an unhealthy body composition can lead to obesity and lead to more critical health conditions such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and even cancer. What causes these factors of obesity? Consuming a high in fat, high in sugar, lack of exercise, overeating, and excess alcohol intake are all factors of obesity. On the other hand, eating disorders are serious illnesses that affect someone’s everyday diet by either eating extremely small amounts of food or severely overeating. Such eating disorders include: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating. Whether you are a man or woman, these disorders are very real and can be treatable. Usually, these eating disorders are associated with other mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety disorders and substance abuse. Each eating disorder has specific characteristics to them as well as treatments. However, these eating disorders also take a toll of a person’s health therefore many health risks are of a concern. People with anorexia nervosa analyze eating, food and their weight constantly. This obsession makes them believe that they are overweight even when they are not. Therefore...
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...tackled at home through improved parental involvement, increased physical exercise, better diet and restraint from eating” (Bob Filner, 2006, pg. 1). This paper will explore the cause of unhealthy body composition, the factors that influence obesity, as well as the different types of eating disorders. Body Composition: Body composition is necessary for many reasons. For one body composition protects the organs in the body, two it protects the body from temperature changes and for three it gives us energy. However with all things considered you can have too much body composition. Body composition crosses the line of healthy to unhealthy when it reaches the rate of 30 pounds overweight. Unhealthy body composition refers to body fat in comparison to lean muscle mass. It is the unhealthy body composition that leads us toward obesity, and a whole host of medical problems such as heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure, to name a few. To ensure your body composition is within normal range you need to measure your BMI (Body Mass Index). To measure BMI a formula of weigh/height^2*703 is used. Factors that influence obesity: Following this idea further it is important to know what causes unhealthy body composition. This can be such things as high fat diet, a diet high in sugar, lack of exercise, and simply overeating. Consequently obesity does not only increase your health risk but also can cause psychological disorders and social issues. Social issues can be especially...
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...The Gender Differences in Eating Disorders: An Analysis Abstract This paper will provide a critical analysis of the issue of eating disorders in the two genders. It has provided a history of the eating disorders, and how they came to be known. Furthermore, the paper has focused on the issue of eating disorders through an analysis of a number of studies. The studies have focused on providing vital information regarding what influences the different genders to have eating disorders. The females are most likely to suffer from anorexia nervosa, while the males suffer from bulimia. A brief summary of all the key points has also been provided. Thereafter, some important recommendations regarding research in some key areas involving eating disorders has been provided as well. Keywords: Anorexia, Bulimia, Females, Males, Study, Eating Disorders, Gender, Media Introduction Eating disorders have now become part of the current culture people live in. In fact, the eating disorders tend to affect different people regardless of their genders and socioeconomic classes. There is even an overall prevalence that is estimated to be about five percent among the population. Many people have a desire to become thin since it is an issue that is always being highlighted by the media. Some of the popular sources of media that influence individuals to become thin include movies, television shows, and magazines, among others. It is such a pity that the prevailing culture, and specifically the...
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...disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia. Without society and the media creating a false image of beauty, the percentage of women suffering from eating disorders would decrease tremendously, and women would stop trying to reach a body weight that is unhealthy and also nearly impossible to achieve. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia can be stopped, but only if society does something to help prevent it. Anorexia Nervosa is a disorder that causes distorted perceptions of the body and a fear of gaining weight. This disorder causes self-starvation and also extreme weight loss. Those who suffer from anorexia are generally seen as being “painfully thin,” which is quite accurate because many dealing with this disorder have a bit of physical discomfort due to their low body weight (Keel 3). People with anorexia tend to develop daily rituals. Some people will count calories while others will weigh themselves after every meal (Keel 20). Because of the obsession with thinness, the rates of those suffering with this disorders has risen greatly (Keel 59). At least one out of every twenty people with anorexia dies, and when compared to other disorders, it seems to be the most deadly (Keel 16). Though not as harmful as Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa is an eating disorder involving binge eating, which in turn causes “intentional purging to compensate for the binge eating.” This eating disorder affects mostly women between the ages of sixteen and forty, but unlike anorexia, it does not...
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...individuals that suffer from eating disorders, the majority start developing eating disorders in their teenage years. Binge eating, which is an eating disorder where in which an individual uncontrollably eats, is the more prevalent eating disorder among many age groups in Canada. Furthermore, the latest studies have shown that in Canada, the two most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa. Among young people in Canada today, 0.04% of females are diagnosed with the complete definition of anorexia nervosa, while young males are 0%. Bulimia nervosa on the other hand is common among 0.3% of young women and 0.2% on young men. Anorexia nervosa in the simplest terms is a condition in which a person is unwilling to maintain a healthy body weight. Likewise, bulimia nervosa is a condition in which an individual uncontrollably over eats in one session, then tries to balance this action of over-eating by getting rid of it through various ways (usually vomiting). Unlike bulimia nervosa, people who suffer from anorexia nervosa usually have more control over eating; sufferers from bulimia nervosa have very little to no control over how much they eat. In both cases, ninety percent of the individuals that suffer from these two eating disorders are predominately women. Individuals who suffer from eating disorders typically have the same view on body image; many have low self-esteem and...
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...eating disorders, however women and girls are more likely to have a negative self image and engage in disordered eating patterns. Even though the population of the United States is becoming heavier, women are increasingly putting an emphasis on being thinner. Men also affected by distorted eating patterns, however with male adolescents and college-aged boys weight dissatisfaction revolves around being heavier and more muscular. When a person has a distorted eating pattern it could lead to other serious disorders like bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, or binge eating. Anorexia nervosa is an “eating disorder characterized by low body weight, an intense fear of becoming obese, and body image distortion” (Sue, Sue & Sue, 2009 p.446). Some of the symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa is a refusal to maintain a body weight above the minimal normal weight for ones age and height, an intense fear of becoming obese, and not having the ability to recognize one’s thinness. Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by, “recurrent episodes of rapid consumption of large...
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...ENC1102 Research Paper 3/15/2014 The Thin-Ideal Women around the world struggle with self-worth as well as depression. Many of these lead to more severe situations, such as eating disorders or even suicide. The idea which has created these issues has developed over time through media and the fashion world. The idea that women are to look a certain way and wear a specific size has caused much turmoil for those living in the Western world. It has been proven through research and studies that show the impact media and advertising has on a woman’s self-esteem as well as her self-image. It has become a cultural idea for women to have thin, curve-free bodies, which cause women who do not fit the image to feel body dissatisfaction along with an importance of the woman’s weight leading her toward depression. Though men can be effected by the stereotypes of body images, it is higher amongst women (Rizon and Fallon, 1988). How Media Portrays the Thin-Ideal The media portrays the thin-ideal through many different aspects. It almost always uses a communicator (the person who is used to relay the message of how thin is the best body image), a message (this is different depending on the type of media used), the channel (which is also different depending on what message the communicator is trying to portray), and finally the audience (who the communicator desires to reach through his or her message using a specific channel). An example of this type of media would be a Weight Watchers...
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