Psychological Factors on Eating Disorders - Research Paper Example

 Introduction The psychological factors of eating disorders, especially among young women, have become a big issue over the past few decades. Much of this has to do with movies, advertisements and what is considered socially acceptable as regards what the Western culture thinks women should look like. Ballerinas, models, film actresses, any women whose appearance is part of making a living, suffer from the image that being rail-thin is essential to success. For some women, staying thin is not a problem because of their family genetics. For others, it seems as if just looking at a donut will put on five pounds and it is hard to get the weight off, no matter how much exercise is done (Hess-Biber, 2006). For women also, the aspect of dating comes in the teenage years and wanting to look as pretty as any model or film actress is important in their minds to get the boys to ask them out. With all these pressures from the media and even from friends and family members, young girls in particular, will suffer as they try to achieve the perfection that everyone seems to want from them. This then can lead to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (Rathus, 1996). Anorexia Nervosa Anorexia nervosa is the illness where people pretend to eat but really don’t. The fear of gaining even a pound is a frightening aspect for people with this illness. Watching a person with this illness shows that while sitting at a dinner table, they will move their food around and eat only a very little bit so as to look like they are eating. They may even lick it or put a bit in their mouths and when no one is looking, they will take the food out and put it in their napkin under the table. The teenage years and young adulthood see the most cases of this illness and the body reacts in many other ways besides losing weight. Young women will also stop menstruating (amenorrhea), literally putting their body development at a halt. Other symptoms will begin to appear such as bad or loose teeth, very pale skin, the obvious skeletal appearance, almost a walking death-like appearance. It is well documented by doctors that these women can weigh 85% less than their expected body weight, a very serious condition. These young girls cannot find a way to get out of this syndrome without some type of clinical intervention (Rathus, 1996). While males can have this disease too, it is generally a young woman’s disease. What can be odd about this disease is that the females can go shopping and plan out elaborate dinners for their families and they are constantly around food because they are obsessed with it. They just won’t eat it (Rathus, 1996). Bulimia Nervosa This is a disease which is quite the opposite although the goal is the same – to be thin. In the case of bulimia, young girls will eat food and then eat some more food a short time later, a binge effect where they will eat quite a bit. Then at a certain point, girls will go off into the bathroom, turn on a shower if at home, and proceed to throw it all up. Adult women are also more prone to this disease in an effort to lose weight. It is also common in families, that mothers who are unhappy with family situations, also conduct in this behavior, perhaps as a method of gaining control over some part of her. She may also promote this on her daughter if she feels her daughter is too fat and should lose weight. Misguided conceptions about what women should look like have destroyed families, almost irreparably. It is more about the looks and appearances than the love in the family (Rathus, 1996). Mind over Matter The mind is even now still an unknown frontier in what we really know about what it can do. Certainly, the mind can be trained to observe factors or events in one way or another, from one person’s view to the next person’s different point of view. The ventromedial hypothalamus (VHM) is the area of the brain where hunger is regulated for the body. In tests with rats, when one got a lesion on it VHM, it began overeating and became obese. Essentially, the “stop eating” signal from the VHM is disabled and the rat doesn’t get the message that it’s time to stop eating. However, this is only a physical aspect of where eating disorders occur (Sternberg, 1998). In eating disorders that plague young college women, a number of factors come into play aside from the dating scene, media output of thin girls as successful, and multiple advertisements showing many different programs guaranteed to help someone lose weight. There is also the stress accorded with being in college and trying to work one’s way towards a bachelor’s degree and even the Masters and Doctoral degrees. Stress, added on to all the other factors, can make for a lethal weapon for a young female college student. Almost 95% of all anorexic females are between the ages of 15 and 30 years of age (Sternberg, 1998, 537). Some indications show that these women come from dysfunctional family relationships, particularly where both of the parents work and do not spend much time with the children. Bulimia, also far more common in females, is primarily in adolescents and, like anorexia, can be treated with psychotherapy and medicine, if chemical treatment is needed (Sternberg, 1998). Research Findings Stice (2002) conducted a research review of studies done on females, ranging from children, through adolescence to early adulthood, and found that body mass may play a factor in some reasons for eating disorders. When children reach the teenage years, females, in particular, begin to start filling out with breasts and more feminine attributes which can trigger a sense of gaining weight rather than body changes from childhood to teenage years. Under certain circumstances, such as negative remarks from mothers and teasing brothers, negative reactions can cause certain thinking patterns that they are getting fat instead of becoming womanly, as some might put it (Stice, 2002). What is a natural occurrence to all young people heading into adolescent adulthood becomes a psychological issue viewed in all the wrong ways, with no one to help discourage that as a negative thought process (Stice, 2002). Indeed, in cases of this nature where the family interactions are very negative concerning weight gain, it is easy to see how young females can acquire this problem, eventually leading to anorexia or bulimia (HSID, 2012). For ballerinas and models, those whose living depends on the thinness of their bodies, this can become a double indemnity, due to threats of losing jobs or roles, thus ending hard-won careers which are short to begin with (Ravaldi et al, 2006). In college, there is much the same pressure to succeed at college work and studies, interacting and gaining approval of peer groups, and the inevitable dating scene which blossoms at this time, especially without parental guidance. The pressure here is to be ‘in’ with the crowd one runs with. Anything out of the normal is considered to make the person feel less part of the crowd, almost an outcast. Yet if the girl loses weight and gets the popular guy, then the girl becomes a ‘star’ and thus, looked up to in the group. The power of influence is wielded in many different ways and it is a learning process at this stage, not always understood so early in life. (Stice, 2002). Internalized Pressures In cases of this nature, controlling outcomes is part of the process of attaining the ideal weight and to also attain success in college work and even getting ‘the guy’ as a boyfriend. In adolescence, control is a newer concept as parents have always had control until the day the teenager finally went off to school. Without someone around to tell young girls what to do, girls must now fend for themselves and figure out what actions will provide the outcomes they need. In this process of controlling the body to gain power, the problems of anorexia and bulimia can take hold as a means of controlling a part which seems to be out of control, whether actual or imagined (Stice, 2002). What occurs in the mind of young females is a dissatisfaction with one’s self which can only be cured by being fashionably thin and thus, being attractive to the opposite sex. Intervention and an analysis of why a young girl feels the way she does, is essential to turning around the thinking process of a young college girl which is extremely internalized at this stage (HSID, 2012). In some cases, young females have been brought up to look just right but what they have to say is of little interest to anyone, therefore, they have not learned to express themselves verbally. It can, in fact, take many years before a woman will discover that her true self is not dependent on how she looks but on what she has to say about things and, that what she says will be of great importance to someone else. The tragedy is in seeing a young female die from illnesses brought on by these two disorders and that the young girl never understood her full worth (HSID, 2012). Resources Hesse-Biber, S., Leavy, P., Quinn, C.E. & Zonio, J. (2006). The mass marketing of disordered eating and Eating Disorders: The social psychology of women, thinness and culture. Women’s Studies International Forum, 29, 208-224. http://www.brown.uk.com/eatingdisorders/hessebiber.pdf Helping Students in Distress (HSID). (2012). A Faculty & Staff Guide for Assisting Students in Need. http://www.cte.umd.edu/HSID.pdf Rathus, S.A. (1996). Psychology in the New Millennium. Fort Worth, TX, Harcourt Brace Publishers, USA. Ravaldi, C., Vannacci, A., Bolognesi, E., Mancini, S., Faravelli, C. and Ricca, V. (2006). Gender role, eating disorder symptoms, and body image concern in ballet dancers, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 61 (4), pp.529-35. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17011362 Sternberg, R.J. (1998). In Search of the Human Mind. Fort Worth, TX. Harcourt Brace Publishers, USA. Stice, E. (2002). Risk and Maintenance Factors for Eating Pathology: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, 128 (5), 825-848. Read More