Anorexia nervosa

Anorexia Nervosa
Paloma E. Peró Perrin

PS 272 E Abnormal Psychology

April 14, 2008

Anorexia Nervosa is defined as a disorder where a person desires to loose weight desperately. Anorexic individuals decrease drastically the amount of food being intake, later they restrict them selves at all from eating. The loss of weight is excessive, but denied by the anorexic. Somecharacteristics that will help to understand better this abnormality are; the person who suffers from anorexia nervosa has an extreme fear of becoming overweight and determined search of thinness; uninterrupted disappointment with weight loss. Rigorous caloric limitation, frequently with too much work out and occasionally with purging, to the point of semi-starvation. Relentlessly limiting caloric ingestionmay cause stop of menstruation, downy hair on limbs and cheeks, dry skin, fragile hair or nails, sensitivity to cold, and risk or acute cardiac or kidney malfunction. A person to be considered as anorexic must have a percentage of 15 under the normal weight for that age and height. The average, where this abnormality occurs is on the age of thirteen.
The first journal article I choose to workwith talks about the DSM-IV and describes the abnormality, explains the reason of the characteristics and talks about some major issues patients with anorexia might have. The other articles agree with this criterion, maybe the definitions might vary in some words, but the whole concept is the same.
Anorexia Nervosa
Criteria. A. Refusal to maintain body weight over a minimal normalweight over a minimal normal weight for age and height, e.g., weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight 15% below that expected; or failure to make expected weight gain during period of growth, leading to body weight 15% below that expected.
B. Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight.
C. Disturbance in the way in which one’s body weight,size, or shape is experienced, e.g., denial of the seriousness of current low weight, or undue influence of body shape and weight on self-evaluation.
D. In females, absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles when otherwise expected to occur (primary of secondary amenorrhea). (A woman is considered to have amenorrhea if her periods occur only following hormone, e.g., estrogenadministration.)
Bulimic subtype. During the episode of anorexia nervosa, the person engages in recurrent episodes of binge eating.
Nonbulimic subtype. During the episode of anorexia nervosa, the person does not engage in recurrent episodes of binge eating. (p. 362)
The main difference between those subgroups is that, individuals who purge and binge show more lability of mood, are moreimpulsive, and are individuals with highest likelihood to use and abuse of alcohol and drugs.
The second article I choose to work with is “Shame and Guilt in Eating Disorders” by Emily S. Frank. In this article Frank talks about how women with eating disorders show higher feelings of shame and guilt in contrast to those women than are either depressed or normal. Shame and guilt abouteating and food can also be important characteristics on describing anorexia nervosa. In this study it is showed that depression is also connected with high manifestation of guilt and shame. Therefore, we can say that most of the patients with anorexia nervosa will suffer from depression. It is also emphasized that patients think deeply about food or eating, and because the next step is bingeing,purging, or exercise, anorexics can be related also with having some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder. On the social aspect we see how these experiences are highly related to unempathic family relationships. In this kind of relationship the patient will feel trapped. “For young women, guilt and shame felt in relation to food, hunger, and appetite may symbolize the guilt they feel about their...