Eating Disorders

Eating Disorders

A vast amount of research has been done on the subject of eating

disorders and their causes. Many eating disorders have been proven to emerge

during adolescence and often serve as the foundations to more serious

problems like anorexia and bulimia. This essay will explore the development of

eating disorders in adolescent girls. It will show that these disorders are closely

connected to the biological and psychosocial changes that occur during the

adolescent period.

Many teen girls suffer with anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which

girls use starvation diets to try to lose weight. They starve themselves down to

skeletal thinness yet still think that they are overweight. Bulimia, meanwhile, is a

disorder in which young women binge on food and then force themselves to

vomit. They also often use laxatives to get food out of their system. All of these

young women who suffer from this problem are considered to suffer from a

psychiatric disorder. While the causes are debatable, one thing that is clear is

that these young women have a distorted body image. (Wolf, pp.214-216)

What is extremely alarming is that the current thin ideal for women in

Western society, which is unattainable for all but a very small percentage of the

population, is compounding this problem. It is a very serious issue when

someone's body shape is determined by genetic disposition and yet they try to

alter it to fit some kind of imaginary ideal of how a person should look.

Thus, one of the most serious problems is that female nature is not what

society says it should be. Some researchers theorize that anorexia is a young

woman's way of canceling puberty. Since they lack body fat, anorexics don't get

their periods and often lose their sexual characteristics such as public hair. They

remain, in other words, little girls. There is also the complex issue of women

feeling that by having an eating disorder they are finally in control of something

in their life. This may sound strange, but much research has shown that women

who have been abused or neglected in their childhoods develop these problems

of control. (Attie and Brooks-Gun, pp.70-71).

Studies suggest that eating disorders often begin in early to

mid-adolescence. They are directly connected to pubertal maturation and the

increases in body fat that...

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...hing else, we need to find compassion and understanding

for the victims of eating disorders. While we work on helping these individuals,

we must also fight the social forces that objectify and exploit female body image

to the disadvantage of not only women, but of all humanity. No one profits if one

half of the human race is being held under attack by socially constructed body

images that are rooted in morbid intent and infantile fantasy.

Bibliography

Attie, Ilana and Brooks-Gunn, J. "Development of Eating Problems in Adolescent

Girls: A Longitudinal Study," Developmental Psychology, 1989, vol. 25, no.1,

7O-79.

Burns, David. Feeling Good. The New Mood Therapy (New York: Avon Books,

1980)

Cauffman, Elizabeth, and Steinberg, Laurence. "Interactive Effects of

Menarcheal Status and Dating on Dieting and Disordered Eating Among

Adolescent Girls," Developmental Psychology, 1996, vol. 32, no.4, 631-635.

Graber, Julia, Brooks-Gunn, J., Paikoff, Roberta, and Warren, Michelle.

"Prediction of Eating Problems: An 8-Year Study of Adolescent Girls,"

Developmental Psychology, 1994, vol.3O, No.6, 823-834.

Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth (Toronto: Random House, 1991)