Question

1A) What are the healthy attitudes toward uses of food with behavior patterns that could lead to unhealthy uses of food?
B) Outline the causes of, effects of, typical persons affected by, and treatment for anorexia nervosa?
C) Outline the causes of, effects of, typical persons affected by, and treatment for bulimia nervosa?
D) Describe other forms of eating disorders: binge-eating disorder, night eating syndrome, and the female athlete triad?
E) Describe methods to reduce the development of eating disorders, including the use of warning signs to identify early cases?

Answer 1

Answer 1 a) eating becomes sustained, distressing, starts to interfere with everyday activities, linked to physiological changes, it may require professional intervention

Ans. 1 b)  

Anorexia is an eating disorder in which the patient has a deep fear of weight gain resulting in extreme loss of body weight. The patient tries to prevent weight gain by almost completely restrict eating food and by doing intense exercises or adopting other methods. It is a complex disorder and have many factors effecting it like social, emotional and biological factors.

Causes of anorexia:

• ​Feeling of dissatisfaction from the body weight and type
• following an intense strict dieting
• Having psychological disorders like anxienty, obsession, depression etc.
• Having low self-esteem, emotional or social issues like peer pressure, cultural pressure etc.
• Having past trauma or any kind of abusive behaviour
• Biological eating disorders which are related to genetics

Effects:

• ill-effect on vital organs heart, brain, or kidneys
• Drop pulse, rate of breathing or blood pressure
• Scarcity of minerals and nutrients in the body resulting in loss of bone strength, imbalance of hormones and body fluids.
• Extreme starvation may result in death

Treatments:

• Psychological therapy: This includes personal and behavioural treatments. These can be personal or are also provided to the family members to take care of the patient. It focuses on developing techniques for changing the attitude and habits of the patient towards eating food. It also deals with the psychological problems of the patients so that they can respond in a better way.
• Specific medications: For some patients antidepressant medications are prescribed with the therapy. These can help the patient to deal with anxiety, depression, stress, sleep disorders etc. as these may be related with anorexia.
• Diet counseling: The prescription of diet patterns and food to eat may restore the normal eating patterns as well as it helps to understand the value and need of a balanced diet for a healthy body.
• Hospitalization: To avoid any major ill-effect on the body, hospitalization can be done. it helps in continuous monitoring of the patient both physically and mentally till the time the patient returns to normal eating pattern.

Answer 1 c)

Bulimia nervosa: It is associated with eating excessively large amount of food and loosing control over eating. It makes the patient unhealthy and conscious of increasing weight and as a result they may try harmful ways to reduce weight.

Causes:

There may be a combination of factors like:

• Personality disorders, emotional imbalance, depression or stress which leads to overeating for relief.
• An extreme concern with the body size ,type and shape.
• Very low self-esteem and social pressures or traumas
• biological disorders

Effects:

• Negative behaviour problems
• heart, kidney or liver diseases
• High tooth decay and hormonal problems
• Digestive problems
• Mental troubles, anxiety, depression etc.
• Self injury

Treatments:

• Psychological counseling: It involves discussions and different therapeutic ways to understand and control mental problems, emotional or social concerns related to this disorder. It includes identifying the unhealthy or negative behaviors and to replace them with healthy and positive behaviour. the families are also made aware of the disorders and causes so that they can support the patient in coping with the disorder.
• Medications : it may be important to prescribe antidepressants which help to control self urges, obsessions or depression in a better way. medications relating to curb eating sensations may also be prescribed.
• Nutrition guidance: A proper diet plan can be given to the patient for a better and healthy eating pattern.
• Hospitalization : in severe cases hospitalization is done to prevent any further complications.

Answer 1 e)

Binge eating disorder: It is a disorder related to overeating and loosing control over eating.

Causes:

Biological causes like hormonal imbalance, mutations in genes may lead to this disorder where brain can't judge the over eating.

Psychological causes include low self esteem, depression, anxiety , obsession etc.

Social and Cultural causes like peer pressure, social pressure also plays a role in it.

Effects:

• Eating more rapidly than normal pattern or eating alone for stres relief
• body weight gain and ill effects on heart and kidneys
• mental and social problems
• hormonal imbalances like PCOD etc.

Treatments

Emotional and pschycological therapies

Medications

nutrition guidance

hospitalization

Female athlete triad

Female athlete triad is a combination of three conditions namely abnormal eating, amenorrhea or imbalnce of menses, and osteoporosis. A patient might suffer one or all symptoms.

Causes:

Doing a severely strict dieting for body weight loss or by taking dangerous medications for better strength and energy like steroids etc.

Effects:

• Weight loss and irregular periods
• premature thinning of bones
• stress and fatigue
• brittle hair or nails
• low rate of heart and blood pressure