Body Weight example essay topic

Biologists also look for problems in the way the body converts food into neurotransmitters (chemicals that carry signals between cells). The brain knows when the body needs certain foods to make the neurotransmitters tell people when to eat next. Anorexia Nervosa may arise from a malfunction in this feedback system (Marx 28-29). Some patterns that have been identified in certain eating disordered families include an overemphasis on appearance, social isolation, emotional rigidity, and the inability to resolve conflicts. There is no such thing as a typical eating disordered family. The same dynamic that triggers an eating disorder in one person may allow another to thrive (Marx 30).

To sociologists, eating disorders result from the value our culture places on thinness. Through advertisements, magazines, and TV programs they all give the hidden message: Thin wins. The cultural pressure to be thin can make feelings of insecurity, self-doubt, or unworthiness (Marx 30). Women are given the message from the media, that beauty (success, personal happiness, and self-worthiness) is based on thin shape. The fashion industry is responsible for promoting the view that one can be loved and respected only when slender (Whitaker 149). Peer group pressures combine with media pressures; fashion magazines and newspaper fashion ads all feature unrealistically, unhealthily thin actresses and models for high achieving perfectionists to compete with (Levenkron 149).

The psychological perspective, most experts feel that biology cannot explain eating disorders. Experts believe that the answer lies in a persons life experiences. A loss or rejection, death in the family, or leaving home, can start the disease (Marx 29). Another point of view, of why anorexia arises, is the females refusal to be an adult.

It is a disorder of puberty, an attempt to stay a girl, a denial of femininity (Or bach 24). Anorexia represents a way to avoid maturity, not just physical or sexual development, but also psychological and social. Achieving thinness lets the anorexic turn back the clock and have a childlike physical appearance (Marx 31). There is a criterion for diagnosing patients with anorexia.

Patients must have at least two out of the four criterions to be diagnosed with the disease. The first criterion is the refusal to maintain body weight or the failure to make expected weight gain during period of growth, leading to body weight 15% below that expected. The second criterion is the intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat. The third criterion is the disturbance in the way in which ones body, weight, size, or shape is experienced. Finally, the last criterion is the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles (Marx 46).

The symptoms for an anorexic is as follows: 1. Phobias concerning changes in bodily appearance is the most outstanding feature. 2. Obsessional thinking about food and liquid intake.

3. Obsessive-compulsive rituals dominate much of the day for an anorexic. 4. Feelings of inferiority about intelligence, personality, and appearance are common.

5. The anorexic never sees choices as moderate, and fears making mistakes. 6. Passive-aggressive behavior often develops as parents and health professionals try to coerce the anorexic in what becomes a power struggle over eating and nutrition.

7. Disinterest in sexuality is often a personality characteristic of the anorexia syndrome and results from: (a) General immaturity and need to see oneself as a child, toward off feelings of parental abandonment (b) Fear of intimacy, physical and emotional. (c) Failure of father to romance daughter healthily, to offer affection and compliments (d) In the case of maturity onset, sexual energies are distracted by obsessional fears of weight gain and ritualistic behaviors over planning of meals, special ways of cutting foods. 8. Delusion thinking develops, especially concerning body size and quantities of food ingested. 9. Paranoid fears of criticism from others are often experienced, especially with respect to being seen as too fat.

10. Depression can be observed particularly in the chronic anorexic. 11. Anxiety is alleviated only by weight loss and fasting. 12. Denial is used, along with delusional thinking, to keep the anorexic starving, exercising, and away from people and the food, they need (Levenkron 2-3).