Mukumaoy, Olimjonova Psy-24 Toni Seddio October 14
Anorexia.
Stepping on the scale all of us stare at the number which appears on the screen. This might be normal among everyone, but some might start to think that's not what they expect to see, they start to worry about their looks especially weight. Each and every single year, there are millions of teenagers who worry about their weight, how they look and compare themselves with the models they see in the media.There are many ways which teenagers deal with it, some will go on a diet, some teens will start to work out and some will go further to reach their goals. The ones who go to further to lose weight become anorexic, and will have an eating disorder
Many people who hear that some one has an eating disorder, they think it will last in a short period. But those people do not pay attention that this will cause more health problems in future. Women and men who have eating disorders usually have a fear of being fat and not liked. One of the biggest issues around the world is "Anorexia Nervosa" which is seen mostly in today's generation and has huge impact to lives of million of people.
Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric disorder characterized by an unrealistic fear of weight gain, self-starvation, and conspicuous distortion of body image. The individual is obsessed with becoming increasingly thinner and limits food intake to the point where health is compromised.The name comes from two Latin words that mean nervous inability to eat. (Brigham)
Anorexia is a serious eating disorder that affects women and men of all ages. Anorexia mostly occurs in the industrialized countries where culture values a thin appearance of people. About 1% of Americans are anorexic. Millions of people suffer from anorexia, 10 in 1 women more likely to get anorexia. While more homosexual men are being diagnosed anorexic than the heterosexuals.
People who are diagnosed are white and they come from middle or upper class of families. But in the 200's a lot number of African American and Hispanic were diagnosed being anorexic. Anorexia can occur at ages from 7(Mash), but it mostly starts developing at the adolescence. It mostly starts during the high-school years at ages 14 to 18 and secondary peak of developing anorexia is at the age of 40's. The more young the individual who was diagnosed anorexic, the more it is harder to to cure and return to the normal healthy lifestyle. Individuals with anorexia refuse to maintain healthy body weight, they want to lose more weight and refuse to eat food.
Recognizing the development of anorexia is very hard because of the society we live in. A lot of people prefer to be thin and good looking. The first signs that triggers to start of anorexia is dieting, skipping meals, consume tiny portion of food and working out very hard. Most anorexic people have an excuse why they do not want to eat anything, they starve themselves during the day, individuals with anorexia look on the labels before consuming them, and reduce sugar and fat from their diet to low calories. Anorexic women spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, watching the size of their cloth and they talk negative things about themselves. Anorexic people avoid eating next to the public and they develop strange food habits such as chewing their food and spitting it out and they create the idea of a good or bad food for themselves.
There are two types of anorexia nervosa. Restrictive anorectics are the anorexics who limit their intake calories, or they just fast themselves during the day. These type of anorexic people use a lot of unhealthy drugs to burn their body calories. Purge-type of anorexia is the individuals who eat and then ged rid of the calories by self vomiting, they abuse diuretics or enemas. (Brigham, p-2).
One of the most risk factors which increases developing the anorexia is the jobs which people do. Most of the sport athletes have a higher rate of anorexia. But people who work in the media or TV such as actors, models and cheerleaders are affected as well. Those people who are hurting their health are trying to stay on their job while losing most important or valuable thing in life. All of us and even public judge people by their appearance and value them by their looking but in reality none of us know what kind of healthy problems they go through to please others. Those people who please us are really hurting themselves for us and public's opinion.
Anorexia nervosa has more than one causes and symptoms which affects one well being of an individual. All of the causes are importants to our life. They are hereditary, biological, psychological and social factors which play an important role in our life which could result developing anorexia. In heredity, twin studies show that if one of the twins has been diagnosed anorexic its is more likely the other twin will develop the same disorder. The biological, is the neurotransmitters of the brain which controls the pleasure of the person. It controls the individuals behavior toward foods. A psychological factor is that some personality types affect developing anorexia. Those types of individuals are perfectionists who control themselves and their performance.These individuals always want to please others and have low-self worth toward themselves. Social factors are the mostly related with family, which results of developing anorexia. Overprotective families and disordered families increase developing anorexia. (Brigham, p-3)
Although anorexia nervosa considered to affect mostly women, its is being raised in men population as well. Less is known about the men being anorexic, but its symptoms and signs are same. Anorexic behaviors has physical and psychological consequences like dramatic weight loss, feeling fat, denial of being too thin, fixation on body image, increase the rate of suicide and death. Anorexia affects the whole body of the person. In some cases women and men's reproductive system might as well be in danger. (Helpguide.org). Being recovered from the huge damage that person has done to herself or himself is not easy. Because those people who are anorexic are not just have an eating disorder, they as well might have compulsive behavior, anxiety and depression in addition to anorexia. Hospitalization is required because during the hospital time doctors and the patient would be able to understand how far the health is hurt and how to treat the patient.
The first actions which are taken toward maintaining the stable health, are to get the individual medically stable by increasing calorie intake. After that most patients need the nutrition therapy to support the long process of recovery and stable weight gain.The third process involves concealing. Its goal is to help person identify negative thoughts and feelings that resulted to the eating disorder and replace all the negative thought with healthier belief. there are also different supports exist such as family therapy,self-help of an individual and cognitive behavior therapy.Cognitive Behavior Therapy patient and doctors work together tounderstandthe cause of the problem.Family support or self help helps individual to change their thinking about themselves and food.( Helpguide.org) Therapy's first goal is to help individuals develop healthy attitude toward the food and body image. Some therapists also address taking psychotherapy. Anorexic as well treated with a variety of medications or drugs that was done by their eating disorder.Drugs which doctors recommend are the natural herbs that manipulate ones being calm and well, like chamomile and lemon balm. Anorexia is very difficult to treat successfully. Most of the people between 20% to 30% just give up on the road of recovery or they could not afford the treatment. Half of the people who recover can maintain healthy life style while between 6% to 20% die.(Brigham,p-5).
Most teenagers who are getting anorexia is results of the media perfection and tease of others. As a parent, doctor, friend or family member we should try to help people with eating disorder to feel great about themselves, remind them that they are being loved just the way they are, spending time by doing healthy work out or enjoyable time with family members or friends. If a person being reminded that they are loved just the way who they are it will increase their self esteem and they might not ever think about getting any sort of disorder.
Food is something we need to survive in this life. It is something that we would not be able to live without, its one of the fundamental components of our lifestyle. We all human being should remember that it is the first thing that keeps us in this life, which gives us health, protein and energy during the day. We should try to help people with the eating disorders especially anorexic to start their life more healthy once again.
Sources
1.Anorexia Nervosa
Signs, Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/anorexia_signs_symptoms_causes_treatment.htm
2. Davidson, Tish, A.M. "Anorexia nervosa." Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health. Ed. Narins, Brigham. Vol. 1. 3rd ed. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2013. Nursing Resource Center. Gale. CUNY - Kingsborough Community College. 12 July 2014 <http://find.galegroup.com.kbcc.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/nrcx/infomark.do?&source=gale&srcprod=NRC&prodId=NRC&userGroupName=cuny_kingsboro&tabID=T001&docId=DB2500010056&type=retrieve&contentSet=GREF&version=1.0>.
3. Abnormal child Psychology 4th ed. Eric J.Mash and David A.Wolfe.