Anorexia: A Physical and Mental Disorder
Our society worships physical perfection. Our role models are slim, sexy, perfectly muscled actors, actresses, models, and athletes. Their images are everywhere from billboards, movie screens, to magazines. Many of us are willing to pay high costs physically, emotionally, and financially. The means by which we try to fulfill them can be extreme and even self-destructive. Young adolescents try to control their weight by dieting. Sometimes their dieting gets out of control and leads them to Anorexia. Anorexia is a misunderstood eating disorder that if left untreated can often be fatal to young adolescents.Anorexia is a disorder in which a person refuses to eat or to retain any food or suffers a prolonged and severe reduction of appetite. The individual has an intense fear of becoming obese, feels fat even when thin, and refuses to maintain a minimal body weight. Dr. Bruch backs this up when he states, "Anorexia is a relentless pursuit of excessive thinness" (Strong, Sayad, & DeVault, 1996, p. 371). There are two types of anorexia: Restricting type and Binge-eating-purging type.The restricting type is associated with weight loss due to food restriction. Starvation can damage vital organs, such as the heart and the brai
Unfortunately, even when family members confront the ill person about his or her behavior or physicians make a diagnosis, adolescents with eating disorders may deny they have a problem. It can be the opposite for adolescents. They can suffer from clinical depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The child is seen as physiologically vulnerable, and the child's family has several characteristics that promote the development of anorexia. Once the adolescent is out of danger, therapy can be put into place. They include the psychoanalytic theory and the cognitive-behavioral theory. With betterAnorexia 8 understanding and education on anorexia, adolescents will be able to see the warning signs and avoid the path to their own self-destruction. At this stage of the disorder, the adolescent becomes dangerously close to death. Another theory of anorexia is the congitive-behavorial theory. It is difficult to reach conclusions on anorexia because the disorder may have resulted in changes in personality or in the patient's family. One type of therapy used in hospitals is the behavior-oriented token program. Antidepressants are the usual drug treatment and help to speed up the recovery process. Burch states, "Anorexia is an attempt by children who have been raised to feel ineffectual to gain competence and respect and to ward off feelings of helplessness, ineffectiveness, and powerlessness" (Neale & Davison, 1998, p. Adolescents with this type of anorexia use drugs to stimulate vomiting and may be in considerable danger as this practice increases the risk of heart failure.
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