They count calories, may be obsessed over weight loss programmes, repeat weighing and physical examinations, skip meals and use laxatives. Eating disorder 2: Bulimia Nervosa – involves cycles of eating a large amount of calories called bingeing and then getting rid of them by vomiting or laxatives known as purging. Unlike anorexia, people who suffer from bulimia may maintain a steady weight. 1b. Describe the signs and symptoms of the eating disorders you described in Question 1a above.
Two main eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia. People with anorexia have a great fear of weight gain and have a view of their body size and shape. As a result, they strive to keep a very low body weight. Some restrict their food intake by dieting, fasting, or excessive exercise. Bulimia is characterized by habitual binge eating.
Anorexia nervosa is basically an obsessive fear of gaining weight. It is when a person has a loss of appetite and a distorted image of him/herself and body. When a noticeable weight loss happens in an abnormally short amount of time, it is commonly linked to this disorder. Bulimia nervosa is when a person does an act called “binging and purging.” In this case, the victim of this disorder tends to over-eat, but when this person is done, he or she forces the food out of the body. Normally, this is done, because
A2 Psychology Unit 3 Eating Behaviour: Psychological Explanations Of One Eating Disorder - Anorexia Nervosa Notes What You Need To Know: Psychological Explanations Of One Eating Disorder - Anorexia Nervosa Anorexia Nervosa: What is it? • Refusal to maintain minimum normal weight and fear of weight gain. • Deliberate weight-loss and a weight of 15% or more below normal. • Disturbance in perception of own body shape, leading to an insistence that the person is overweight. • It is often co-morbid with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and/or depression.
Discuss psychological explanations of one eating disorder (8+16 marks) The DSM defines eating disorders as ‘illnesses in which the victims suffer severe disturbances in their eating behaviours and related thoughts and emotions’. It is argued that the preoccupation with food in many Western cultures, coupled with the obsession of losing weight has led to the emergence of food and eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa (AN). As society has developed its understanding of the causes of eating disorders, it has become apparent that they are as much a mental disorder as they are a physical disorder. Thus psychological explanations have emphasised the risk factors of media, culture, personality and childhood experiences in the cause of Anorexia Nervosa. The DSM (IV) states four criteria for AN.
We cannot judge ghost sickness behaviours properly without viewing the context of American Indian culture; this fact is cultural relativism. In addition, it is important not to be ethnocentric and judge behaviour in another culture in terms of our own. Some groups share many aspects of the mainstream culture and they have certain social norms, values and beliefs which are different from the culture of whole society, so sub-culture is also important to be consider in definitions of abnormality. Abnormality in terms of statistical infrequency:
Eating Disorders are potentially life-threatening illnesses which are simultaneously psychological and physical in nature. They are characterized by a range of abnormal and harmful eating behaviors which are accompanied and motivated by unhealthy beliefs, perceptions and expectations concerning eating, weight, and body shape. As a general characterization, individuals with eating disorders tend to have difficulty accepting and feeling good about themselves. They tend to think of themselves as "fat" and "ugly" because of their body size and shape, even when this self-judgment is objectively inaccurate and false. Identifying and defining themselves according to their perceived "fatness", eating disordered people tend to conclude that they are unacceptable and undesirable, and as a result, feel quite insecure and inadequate, especially about their bodies.
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.
Deviance is best described as something in society that is out of the social norm. Howard Becker, author of Outsiders, claims that deviance is, “a consequence of the responses of others actions to a person’s act...” (Becker 9). In brief, deviance is based on what society views as normal, or not normal, and the stigma one receives for deviance is based on how unusual the deviance is. Although deviance does not have to be negative, often times, uncommon, irregular things are looked down upon in society. One of the many deviant subcultures in today’s world is anorexia.
Obesity as Social Stigma Compulsive overeating (binging but not purging) is most often considered a bad habit that can easily be changed. On the contrary, compulsive overeating is an eating disorder that is more properly defined as an addiction rather than a simple habit. Overeaters use eating as a means of hiding from their emotions and coping with the stress and problems of their lives, turning to food for comfort. Compulsive overeating is characterized by uncontrollable eating that results in weight gain that may lead to obesity. According to the American Obesity Association (2002), obesity is a “complex, multi-factorial chronic disease involving environmental (social and cultural) and genetic, physiologic, metabolic, behavioral and psychological components.” AOA points out that approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, with 60 million being obese.