The more time I spend researching anorexia, the more I see stories or information directed toward the patient. So where does the family come in, and why is there so little information out there about how the anorexia of a loved one can affect an entire family unit? After endless hours on the Internet, I finally came across an article with far more than a paragraph of information regarding this topic. The authors of, Impact of eating disorders on family life: individual parents’ stories, say that “eating disorders have a profound effect on families in western societies but this has not been well-documented in the literature. Current literature is often written from the perspective of sufferers and their therapists, with very little mention about parents or families. The focus on parents is mostly negative and concentrates on their role in the underlying causation of the illness.”
If you think about all the information we read or hear about anorexia, families are often only considered when determining the cause of the patients illness. Are the parents anorexic too? Is the family dysfunctional? Does the parent-child relationship effect the child’s desire to eat? There are so many negative questions you can ask a family, but what about asking how the anorexia has affected the family instead of the patient? Has it made them depressed, regretful, or feel like they have done a horrible job as a parent? These are the questions I would like to know. To play the devils advocate, I must say that all the anorexic patients I have seen have directly resulted from some dysfunction in their family unit, but I have to assure myself that there are some families among the innocent.
I have read that many families play a vital role in the treatment of the patient. It is only when parents are excluded from the treatment process when they are put in a negative light, which then transfers to literature and the media. The negative light families are put under only adds to the, “concern, despair, frustration, anger, confusion, and guilt” they already feel. So why is it that we must ostracize them in a way that only makes it harder for everyone? Also, regardless of what role the families played in the patient’s life, wouldn’t it be easier to overcome such a challenge in the presence of those you had always known? Although each case is individual, I would believe the majority of patients would wish for their families to be present, as they have always and undoubtedly been some sort of support system. Whether that be positive or negative seems to be irrelevant, because the patient, in most cases, will always listen to the advice given by their parents. In any war, a battle is always won not with a single person, but with a group of people.
Citations
Hillege, Sharon. Beale, Barbara. McMaster, Rose. Impact of eating disorders on family life: individual parents’ stories. 28. June. 2005. Mental Health pages 1-3
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Media's Influence
As we all know, it is easy for society to become entrapped or influenced by media, and I must say that I too, I am a victim of this corruption. From politics to music and fashion, there is an ideal image for everything and everyone. Females, in particular, seem to become obsessed with the body image portrayed by models and actresses. Starting at a young age, girls form images in their heads about what they believe looks perfect and try to achieve this look, usually with the hopes that men will find them perfect also. Three authors, Choi, Yoonhyeung 'Yoon'; Leshner, Glenn; Choi, Jounghwa, studied the Third-Person Effects of Idealized Body Image in Magazine Advertisements. In this article, I found a lot of interesting information concerning the female mind. Posted below are some of my findings.
• Female adolescents are affected negatively by ideal body image not because they believe those images are real but because they believe that others, in particular, males, will evaluate them.
• According to idealized body images in advertisements, such explanations stand somewhat in contrast to previous studies where researchers assumed women would perceive the ideal body as a realistic and attainable goal (based on social comparison theory), thus comparing themselves to the ideal bodies (Law & Labre, 2002; Martin & Kennedy, 1993; Richins, 1991).
• Body image is a multidimensional construct and is defined as a mental construction of oneself (Markus, 1977; Markus & Sentis, 1982) or as the degree of satisfaction with one’s current physical self (Cash & Deagle, 1997). According to Hutchinson (1985), body image is formed via positive and negative feedback from others whose opinions matter to us.
• Women see themselves through the eyes of others whom they believe have been significantly affected by idealized media images.
• The TPP (Third Person Perspective) applied to idealized body image advertising suggests that women believe others are influenced by idealized body images more than they themselves are.
• According to the study, people use a relatively naïve schema for media effects on others, whereas they use a more complicated conditional-effects model to evaluate media effects on self.
As I take a step back and look at media’s affects on the female population, I realize that I too am affected. It is so hard not to look at a magazine with gorgeous girls in it and have no desire to be like them. What I wonder about is the models themselves. Do they enjoy their workout and diet regimen? I’m sure that a lot of them are anorexic too, and maybe some of them fell into that category after being involved with the industry for so long. It is hard to blame models and movie stars for being the way they are. That is just how our society is built…if they were larger and unattractive, people wouldn’t want to go watch them at the cinema or buy an advertised bathing suit. Body image is a vicious cycle with the impetus being money. I can only imagine what it would be like to be a model, and think that if I gained 5 pounds I’d be cut, without a job, and no source of income. I think, due to our perfectionist mindset, America will remain the same with regards to body image. And just to get your mind thinking, there are some Latin American countries that prohibit you from modeling if you are UNDER a certain weight. Yes, this means they actually want you to live a bit longer.
So what about in the countries where being fat is or was once considered wealthy; what does their media portray? To investigate this question, I took up BBC News for some help. In Mauritania's 'wife-fattening' farm that was in practice over a generation ago, one third of the female population was force-fed into obesity. Now, only around one in ten girls is forced to live at fat farms until they have reached their families expectations. In rural Mauitania, the classic rotund woman is still strutting her desired body on the streets, and this fat and beautiful look is still what their country is famous for. Although not all men are interested in the famous voloptuous woman, no men are interested in the oh-so skinny American. What they want, is for their women "to be natural, just to eat normally."
Citations
Choi, Yoonhyeung 'Yoon'; Leshner, Glenn; Choi, Jounghwa. Third-Person Effects of Idealized Body Image in Magazine Advertisements. Hanyang University. American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 147-164, Oct. 2008
Pascale, Harter.
26 January 2004. Mauritania's 'wife-fattening' farm. Electronic document,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3429903.stm
Here is a clip from youtube regarding an anorexic model from Italy, the fashion capital of the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTIjRxT_Y9g
CBS News Online
October 12, 2007
Sheila MacVicar reports.
(CBSNews.com)
• Female adolescents are affected negatively by ideal body image not because they believe those images are real but because they believe that others, in particular, males, will evaluate them.
• According to idealized body images in advertisements, such explanations stand somewhat in contrast to previous studies where researchers assumed women would perceive the ideal body as a realistic and attainable goal (based on social comparison theory), thus comparing themselves to the ideal bodies (Law & Labre, 2002; Martin & Kennedy, 1993; Richins, 1991).
• Body image is a multidimensional construct and is defined as a mental construction of oneself (Markus, 1977; Markus & Sentis, 1982) or as the degree of satisfaction with one’s current physical self (Cash & Deagle, 1997). According to Hutchinson (1985), body image is formed via positive and negative feedback from others whose opinions matter to us.
• Women see themselves through the eyes of others whom they believe have been significantly affected by idealized media images.
• The TPP (Third Person Perspective) applied to idealized body image advertising suggests that women believe others are influenced by idealized body images more than they themselves are.
• According to the study, people use a relatively naïve schema for media effects on others, whereas they use a more complicated conditional-effects model to evaluate media effects on self.
As I take a step back and look at media’s affects on the female population, I realize that I too am affected. It is so hard not to look at a magazine with gorgeous girls in it and have no desire to be like them. What I wonder about is the models themselves. Do they enjoy their workout and diet regimen? I’m sure that a lot of them are anorexic too, and maybe some of them fell into that category after being involved with the industry for so long. It is hard to blame models and movie stars for being the way they are. That is just how our society is built…if they were larger and unattractive, people wouldn’t want to go watch them at the cinema or buy an advertised bathing suit. Body image is a vicious cycle with the impetus being money. I can only imagine what it would be like to be a model, and think that if I gained 5 pounds I’d be cut, without a job, and no source of income. I think, due to our perfectionist mindset, America will remain the same with regards to body image. And just to get your mind thinking, there are some Latin American countries that prohibit you from modeling if you are UNDER a certain weight. Yes, this means they actually want you to live a bit longer.
So what about in the countries where being fat is or was once considered wealthy; what does their media portray? To investigate this question, I took up BBC News for some help. In Mauritania's 'wife-fattening' farm that was in practice over a generation ago, one third of the female population was force-fed into obesity. Now, only around one in ten girls is forced to live at fat farms until they have reached their families expectations. In rural Mauitania, the classic rotund woman is still strutting her desired body on the streets, and this fat and beautiful look is still what their country is famous for. Although not all men are interested in the famous voloptuous woman, no men are interested in the oh-so skinny American. What they want, is for their women "to be natural, just to eat normally."
Citations
Choi, Yoonhyeung 'Yoon'; Leshner, Glenn; Choi, Jounghwa. Third-Person Effects of Idealized Body Image in Magazine Advertisements. Hanyang University. American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 147-164, Oct. 2008
Pascale, Harter.
26 January 2004. Mauritania's 'wife-fattening' farm. Electronic document,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3429903.stm
Here is a clip from youtube regarding an anorexic model from Italy, the fashion capital of the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTIjRxT_Y9g
CBS News Online
October 12, 2007
Sheila MacVicar reports.
(CBSNews.com)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A First Hand Experience
One of my best friends is anorexic. She doesn’t know it, but my other friends and I do. We realized she had a problem the summer of our junior year in high school. She began talking about how she was fat, hated her legs, and needed to be skinnier like me. I have a petite and very slender body not by choice, but because of my genetics. Unfortunately, I became her driving force and was caught in the middle of her vicious cycle. Although being slim can be nice, the idea of having my friend destroy herself, for what seems to be my fault, is haunting. But she didn’t see it that way, she saw me as motivation to become what she thought was ideal.
After a summer of dieting and running as many miles as her body could handle, she started to notice a difference. Her mission began by cutting out fattening foods and reducing the size of her meals. At first she looked good and really healthy, but as time went on her once beautifully proportioned body started to disappear. As my friends and I predicted, our senior year marked the time where we would start to use her name and anorexia in the same sentence. She discontinued running and most of her already too seldom eating habits. When she did eat, she would eat junk food like Doritos, macaroni and cheese, or candy. In some ways, it seemed good that her food intake was junk food because it would turn into fat, and fat takes much longer to break down then say a salad does.
You may be asking yourself why we didn’t try to stop her, and why we didn’t force her to eat. The reason is because whenever we would try, the situation would only worsen. She would compare herself to people she thought were smaller than her but in reality, had an extra ten pounds of weight on their bodies. By the summer of our senior year, I actually thought that if I hugged her too hard, she would crumble into the earth. Although an outsider might see her as being a healthy young girl, we all know that while she was loosing 30 pounds, she was also loosing all of her strength.
Now that we have all separated into different colleges along the east coast, it is hard for us to monitor what she does. We hoped that her friends at college would be a positive influence, but it turns out that they have addictions with shopping and drinking also, and my friend has kept hers with eating. Every time we see her, her body appears to have lost a few inches.
My friend is 5’5” and weighs 100 pounds even. Her junior year of high school marked the last time she ate properly, and looked “hot” as the guys would say. She had a toned, athletic body and was one of the top runners on our track team. Now, there is nothing left and she seems transparent. Although she is not so sick that she needs to be hospitalized, she surely is on her way. The scary part is that she truthfully thinks she is fat…fat at 100 pounds.
After a summer of dieting and running as many miles as her body could handle, she started to notice a difference. Her mission began by cutting out fattening foods and reducing the size of her meals. At first she looked good and really healthy, but as time went on her once beautifully proportioned body started to disappear. As my friends and I predicted, our senior year marked the time where we would start to use her name and anorexia in the same sentence. She discontinued running and most of her already too seldom eating habits. When she did eat, she would eat junk food like Doritos, macaroni and cheese, or candy. In some ways, it seemed good that her food intake was junk food because it would turn into fat, and fat takes much longer to break down then say a salad does.
You may be asking yourself why we didn’t try to stop her, and why we didn’t force her to eat. The reason is because whenever we would try, the situation would only worsen. She would compare herself to people she thought were smaller than her but in reality, had an extra ten pounds of weight on their bodies. By the summer of our senior year, I actually thought that if I hugged her too hard, she would crumble into the earth. Although an outsider might see her as being a healthy young girl, we all know that while she was loosing 30 pounds, she was also loosing all of her strength.
Now that we have all separated into different colleges along the east coast, it is hard for us to monitor what she does. We hoped that her friends at college would be a positive influence, but it turns out that they have addictions with shopping and drinking also, and my friend has kept hers with eating. Every time we see her, her body appears to have lost a few inches.
My friend is 5’5” and weighs 100 pounds even. Her junior year of high school marked the last time she ate properly, and looked “hot” as the guys would say. She had a toned, athletic body and was one of the top runners on our track team. Now, there is nothing left and she seems transparent. Although she is not so sick that she needs to be hospitalized, she surely is on her way. The scary part is that she truthfully thinks she is fat…fat at 100 pounds.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
What Causes Anorexia
Some say that anorexia is a psychiatric disease that doesn't yet have a definite cause. Those who display signs of anorexia focus on reducing there caloric intake by excessive dieting, and physical activity. "Between 31% and 80% of anorectic patients display abnormally high levels of physical activity and overexercise (Hebebrand et al., 2003). Furthermore, excessive physical activity and caloric restriction reinforce each other in the development of severe weight loss."When I asked my friends the question, "What do you think the reason for anorexia is?" they all responded with answers along the lines of, "the desire to be skinny." Before taking a deeper look into the reasons why people are anorexic, it is easy to assume that it's just because they want to be skinny, or have a skewed self-image. Within the first few minutes of my research I realized that this wasn't entirely true. In a research study of 38 patients conducted by D. W. K. KAY, B.M., B. Ch. (Oxon), D.P.M. and DENIS LEIGH, M.D., M.R.C.P. the reasons for anorexia differed. They found that "parental neurosis, disturbed parent-child relationships, childhood neurotic traits, and previous neurotic illness are all common reasons for the disorder". Information from medicinenet.com tells us that the pressure to be thin and attractive does exist as a reason for anorexia, but there are other reasons too; some due to family situations including the encouragement of anorexia where family members are interdependent on each other to enforce the restrictive behavior.
Although these reasons makes sense, it is something often overlooked by outsiders who judge those with anorexia. Although a simple answer to a complex problem, the reasons for anorexia have already made me look at the situation through a different lens. At first, I saw it as an internal problem rooting from something so individual to the patient; something that they could control. But knowing that the disorder usually stems from family issues and childhood difficulties sheds a different light.
Although I have opened this new chapter, I still wonder if anorexics use this disease to control what is going on, or what went on in their lives. Do they feel they have lost all control of what surrounds them? Maybe this is why they choose to be anorexic; so they can control what is going on inside instead of the outside world they believe they have no reign over. Or maybe, it is still the desire to be skinny or "beautiful."
As I look further into the word beauty, I realize that thinness is only attractive in certain groups or society's. In some countries, being fat is a sign of good health and comfortable living; it is a sign of wealth. Sometimes, thin females are considered poor and loose respect from the rest of society which makes thinness a sign of low class. So what do they think of the people who desire, in their minds, to look poor? Now there is another thought that sends my mind soaring.
Citations
Dopamine antagonism inhibits anorectic behavior in an animal model for anorexia nervosa
European Neuropsychopharmacology 19.3 (March 2009): p153(8)., Linda A.W. Verhagen, Mieneke C.M. Luijendijk, Jacquelien J.G. Hillebrand and Roger A.H. Adan.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/100/419/411
Journal of Mental Science (1954) 100: 411-431. doi: 10.1192/bjp.100.419.411
© 1954 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
http://www.medicinenet.com/anorexia_nervosa/article.htm
©1996-2009 MedicineNet
Although I have opened this new chapter, I still wonder if anorexics use this disease to control what is going on, or what went on in their lives. Do they feel they have lost all control of what surrounds them? Maybe this is why they choose to be anorexic; so they can control what is going on inside instead of the outside world they believe they have no reign over. Or maybe, it is still the desire to be skinny or "beautiful."
As I look further into the word beauty, I realize that thinness is only attractive in certain groups or society's. In some countries, being fat is a sign of good health and comfortable living; it is a sign of wealth. Sometimes, thin females are considered poor and loose respect from the rest of society which makes thinness a sign of low class. So what do they think of the people who desire, in their minds, to look poor? Now there is another thought that sends my mind soaring.
Citations
Dopamine antagonism inhibits anorectic behavior in an animal model for anorexia nervosa
European Neuropsychopharmacology 19.3 (March 2009): p153(8)., Linda A.W. Verhagen, Mieneke C.M. Luijendijk, Jacquelien J.G. Hillebrand and Roger A.H. Adan.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/100/419/411
Journal of Mental Science (1954) 100: 411-431. doi: 10.1192/bjp.100.419.411
© 1954 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
http://www.medicinenet.com/anorexia_nervosa/article.htm
©1996-2009 MedicineNet
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
An Introduction
When I first started investigating blog topics, the idea of anorexia never came to mind. I tried to look beyond the commonly studied topics and delve deeper into something fewer people had researched. It wasn't until a particular class discussion when I realized that it wasn't about the topic I studied, but it was about finding an understanding for something that has always made me uncomfortable. After watching a certain clip posted on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFbYW6bNViw), I realized that anorexia nervosa was the topic for me to study. Although I don't experience the psychological disorder of anorexia, a few of my close friends and family members do. Everyday I see young females and sometimes males that really, are just way too skinny. The sad part is that they don't know they are too skinny; they see fat when we see... well, when we see anorexic. But how can that be? How can someone seriously look in the mirror and see something they are not? Is there a part of their brain that works differently then ours? I don't know the answers to these questions, but it is something I plan to investigate. I want to understand their perception versus ours. There are so many people trapped in the vicious cycle of restricted eating. Some, I believe, truly see themselves being a bigger size than they really are, but there must be something else, something intrinsically embedded in their personalities. Is it more of a personality disorder, a control issue? These are the questions I plan to answer, not only for myself, but for others out there who share the same worrisome curiosity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFbYW6bNViw
Anorexi Bulimi Kontaki
www.abkontakt.se
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