Eating Disorders

Eating Disorders

History Questions

·        Do you worry about how much you weigh?

·        What do you think of your body/weight?

·        Do you diet?

·        Do you ever make yourself sick after a meal?

Anorexia Nervosa

·        Low weight not due to other illness 

·        Persistent refusal to maintain weight (cf depression – don‟t want to eat). Obsession with food, weight and thinness

·        90% female, usual onset from 11 – 19 years

·        Aetiology:

o  Media message: thin = beautiful

o  Already painfully aware of body image due to changes in puberty

o  Stressful life situations

o  Genetics

o  Family dynamics

o  Something they can have control over when they don‟t have control in other areas of their lives

o  Failure to achieve weight control ® ¯sense of failure ® try harder

·        Signs:

o  Deliberate self-starvation

o  Fear of gaining weight

o  Denial of hunger

o  Constant exercising

o  Self perception of being fat

o  Absent or irregular periods

o  May purge (vomiting, laxatives) 

·        Complications: starvation, heart, osteomalacia, ¯fertility

Bulimia

·        Purging a more dominant feature

·        Don‟t usually loose so much weight