Anorexia vs. Bulimia

1191 Words5 Pages
Shivani Gupta Lisa Diomande Compare and Contrast Essay 10/22/2014 Anorexia vs. Bulimia Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are both categorized as psychiatric disorders. Both are characterized by severe disturbances in eating behaviors (Anorexia vs. Bulimia). They’re the most common eating disorders in the world and are primarily seen in women who are overly concerned with body image. 1 in 10 Americans are affected by one disorder or the other (Anorexia vs. Bulimia, 2012). Both disorders have many aspects in common but are not the same thing, as they are commonly confused. Anorexia Nervosa is a mental illness that is a result of obsessive compulsive behavior. A person who is diagnosed as an anorexic may have lost control of some aspect in their life, and replace that loss of control with the desire to control how they look. Anorexia consists of three key features; the refusal to maintain a healthy body weight, an intense fear of gaining weight and a distorted body image (Smith and Segal 2014). When it comes to anorexia, eating and meal times can become very stressful. A person may obsessively count how many calories they eat and exercise multiple times in a day. There are two types of anorexia; restrictive anorexia and purging anorexia. The restricting type is achieved by controlling calorie intake by crash dieting, over exercising fasting, etc (Smith and Segal, 2014). Purging anorexia is achieved by vomiting, using laxatives or diuretics (Smith and Segal, 2014). The signs and symptoms of an anorexic are; dramatic weight loss, feeling fat even though the person may be underweight, fixation on body image, harshly critical of appearance and denial that they may be too thin. Symptoms of a purging anorexic may include; using dieting pills, laxatives or diuretics, vomiting after eating and compulsive exercising. There are also food behavior signs of an
Open Document