Eating Disorders: Anorexia and Bulimia

According to researchers, the motivation of abnormal behaviour (like seen in anorexia and bulimia) could be caused by the contribution of psychological, environmental, and biological factors. Researchers are unable to experiment on individuals affected by these disorders in order to manipulate possible causes to check if individuals become anorexic or bulimic, but they are able to examine the factors associated with the disorders, as well as the changes that occur in the individuals when they are treated successfully.

Risk Factors

Two college freshmen named Sara and Lisa suffered from eating disorders. Sara was a victim of anorexia nervosa, which was an intense fear of being fat, causing her to severely restrict her food intake to the point of self-starvation. Despite looking emaciated and weighing 85 percent less than a person would be expected to be according to the said person's age and height, anorexic patients continue to view themselves as being fat. Anorexia causes a cease in menstruation, produces bone loss, stresses the heart, and increases risk of death.

Individuals like Lisa, who suffers from bulimia nervosa, are also in fear of getting fat. They tend to binge-eat, after which they purge the food by inducing vomiting or using laxatives. Often individuals suffering from bulimia consume between 2,000 to 4,000 calories during their binges. In some cases, they tend to consume around 20,000 calories per day. Although most bulimics are of normal body weight, repeated purging can cause severe physical consequences; which include gastric problems and badly-eroded teeth. Whereas most anorexics do not see their food restriction as problematic, bulimics typically do. However, they find it extremely difficult to alter their binge-purge pattern.

According to Becker, in 1999, around 90 percent of anorexic and bulimic individuals were women. According to some surveys, up to 10 percent of college women exhibited symptoms of bulimia although the general prevalence among North American women was 1 to 3 percent compared with 0.5 percent for anorexia. The latest statistics will be higher.

Sociocultural Factors

Anorexia and bulimia are more common in industrialized cultures, where being thin is equated to beauty. However, cultural norms alone cannot be held accountable for eating disorders as only a small percentage of women within a particular culture tend to be anorexic or bulimic; personality factors can be part of the issue. Anorexic individuals are often perfectionists. For example; Sara, who was a high-achiever (a highschool valedictorian), strove to live up to lofty self-standards which included strict ideals of an acceptably thin body. For Sara and Lisa, losing weight became a battle for success and control.

Their upbringing too may have played a role in their need for perfectionism and control. According to their description of their parents; they are disapproving, with expectations of abnormally-high achievement standards. For some anorexic children and teens, food refusal may be reinforced by the distress they cause their parents to feel; making self-starvation a way to punish their parents while gaining some control over their lives. As one anorexic patient said in a therapy session: it was like a power thing; I was showing my mother that  I don't need to eat and I can make her mad. The last thing a  parent wants is for you to die. You can get back at anyone, but if I  need to find a way, I had to forgive her as I am killing myself.

For individuals with bulimia, a different pattern from anorexia emerges; tending to be depressed and anxious, with an exhibition of low-impulse control, as well as lacking a stable sense of personal identity. Their food cravings are often caused by stress and negative mood, causing them to binge-eat to temporarily reduce their negative emotional state; followed by feelings of guilt, self-contempt, and anxiety—which is followed by the purging, maybe as a means of reducing these negative feelings.

Genetic Factors

On the biological side, genetic factors appear to predispose some individuals towards eating disorders. The concordance rate of eating disorders is higher among identical twins than among fraternal twins. The concordance rate between first-degree relatives, such as parents and siblings, are also higher than third and fourth-degree relatives. Researchers are searching for specific genes and combination genes that could be contributors to eating disorders.

Anorexia and bulimia exhibit abnormal activity in serotonin, leptin, and other body chemicals. According to the belief of some researchers, neurotransmitter and hormonal imbalances help in the causing of eating disorders; but others propose that the abnormal eating patterns are the initial cause of the chemical changes as a response that, once started, perpetuate eating and digestive irregularities. Other bodily changes also help in the perpetuating of eating disorders. An example of this is the stomach acid which is expelled into the mouth during vomiting, which causes those suffering from bulimia to lose taste sensitivity and also makes the usually unpleasant taste of vomit more tolerable.

Treating eating disorders can be difficult, taking years; but with professional help, around half of all anorexic and bulimic patients are able to make a full recovery while others are able to eat more normally while still maintaining their preoccupation with food and weight.

Psychological Aspects of Hunger

Eating is positively reinforced by the good taste of food and negatively reinforced by hunger reduction. We develop an expectation of eating being pleasurable, making it an important motivation to seek out and consume food. Even the mere thought of food can trigger a feeling of hunger.

Attitudes, habits, and psychological needs also regulate food intake. Have you felt stuffed during a meal yet finished it and gone on to have dessert as well? Beliefs such as not to leave food remaining on your plate, as well as condition habits of autopilot snacking while watching TV, may lead us to eat even when we are not hungry. Conversely, countless dieters tend to restrict their food intake even when hungry.

Social Pressure

Especially for women, such restrictions stem from social pressure to conform to cultural standards of beauty from Playboy centrefolds and beauty pageant contestants and fashion models. It is an indicator of a clear trend towards a thinner and increasingly unrealistic ideal female body shape starting from the 1950s. Given the deluge of "thin = attractive" mass media messages in many parts of the world, it's not surprising that a survey in Australia has revealed that, even though most young women there are of average, healthy weight, only a fifth are happy with it.

Among 12 to 19-year-old Chinese female students, 80 percent are concerned about their weight. Compared with male American high school students, female students are less likely to be overweight, but more likely to diet and think of themselves as overweight. In comparison to men, women became increasingly dissatisfied with their body image throughout the last half of the 20th century.

A study by April Fallon and Paul Rozzin suggests an additional reason for this. Female college students overestimated the needed body average to conform to male preferences, while men overestimated their necessary bulkiness to conform to women's preferences. Women also had the tendency to perceive their body shape as heavier than ideal.

A study in 2004, on American and Spanish men and women, replicated this study with men's overall perception serving to keep them satisfied with their figures, while women's perceptions placed pressure on them to lose weight. Whether it be Caucasian American, African American, or Hispanic American, the men seemed more likely to have ego-protective perceptions about their body shape than women do.

However, men, too, are influenced by cultural ideals. College men's satisfaction with their bodies tend to decrease when exposed to series of advertisements of muscular males, but not when advertisements of average-built men came on. College athletes with value for muscle function tend to believe that women's preference is for a more muscular body type than theirs, making them have a preference of being more muscular than they are. The general consensus is that women's typical need is to be thin, with men who are overweight wanting to be thin and thin men wanting to be more buff.

Environmental and Cultural Factors

Food availability is the most obvious environmental regulator of eating. For millions who live poverty-stricken or famine-ravaged regions, the scarcity of food limits consumption. In contrast, the abundance of high-fat foods in many countries is a contributing factor to a high rate of obesity.

The taste and varieties of food also regulate eating. Foods that taste good increase consumption, but during a meal and from meal-to-meal; we can grow tired of eating the same thing, causing termination of the meal more quickly. In contrast, food variety increases consumption as observed at buffets.

This is because, through classical conditioning, we learn to associate the smell and sight of food with taste; in return, these food cues cause hunger. You may not be hungry and feel no need to indulge yourself unnecessarily, but the sensuous aroma will change your mind, making you feel hungry when you are not, like when you get the smell of baked goods. Even rats who are already full and ignore available foods will eat again with classically conditioned lights and sound settings they are used to associate food with.

Many other environmental stimuli can affect food intake. For example, we tend to eat more when dining with others than when dining alone. Cultural norms influence when, how, and what we eat as well. In Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Spain, they often begin their dinner late evening (around 9 p.m.). By this time, most North Americans have finished their dinner. Also, although we love variety, we tend to be more comfortable with familiar foods, often feeling difficulty overcoming squeamish thoughts of unfamiliar dishes.

Obesity

The heaviest known male and female according to history records were both Americans, weighing 1,400 pounds and 1,200 pounds, respectively, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, in 2000. A few people had approached that weight, but according to the body mass index (BMI), which takes into account the height and weight of an individual; a staggering 25 to 30 percent of American adults are obese, with 30 to 35 percent being overweight. From Canada to the Palestinian west bank, the adult obesity rates recorded are 20 to 50 percent according to many studies.

Being Obese places a great risk on one's health, as well as targets of prejudice and stereotypes. Obesity is often blamed on lack of will-power, a dysfunctional coping mechanism, heightened sensitivity to external food cues, and emotional disturbances. However, researchers have no such consistent findings between obese and non-obese people. There are hormone-related conditions that can cause weight-gain without excess food consumption, too, and hypothyroidism is one of them. South-East Asians tend to stay slim even with high-fat food consumption due to their genes, which means genes may be in play in as well, in cases of obesity.