Eating Disorder Anorexia Nervosa

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According to the CDC (2013), Anorexia Nervosa is a very serious eating disorder that effect over 0.9% of Americans each year. The DSM-IV-TR criteria for Anorexia Nervosa is “refusal to maintain a body weight that is normal for the person’s age and height”, “Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight”, “Distorted perception of body shape and size” and “Absence of at least three consecutive menstrual periods” (Butcher, 2010). The sociological causes of Anorexia Nervosa are influences from peer and media. An adolescent are in the stage where they views and opinion are impressionable by the thing that they hear and observe. They become concerned with unrealistically thin models and people that are viewed on television (Butcher, 2010). Society will manipulate images of skinny people to show what beauty of a women or a man should look like. An adolescent will try to imitate those images thus causing them to believe that they are too fat despite what anyone says. This type of social cognition gives them a false imagery of people and themselves. An adolescent with restricting type of anorexia will continue counting calories even though someone my comment about how skinny he or she is.
In comparison to sociological causes, biological causes of Anorexia Nervosa have been shown to affect the person’s neuropsychological function as well as the hormonal levels (Andrés-perpiña, Lozano-serra, Puig, Lera-miguel, Lázaro, & Castro-fornieles, 2011). Hormone’s that are affected by malnutrition is Triiodothyronine (thyroid hormone) and Cortisol (steroid hormone) (Andrés-perpiña al et., 2011). The effect of this hormones have been proven to show brain alterations and poor cognitive performance in adolescent and adults (A...

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...causes of obesity suggest that there could be problems in the cognitive. Parts of the brain that control the motivation, reward, and inhibitory are being contribute to obesity (Butcher, 2010). So it could be a mental disorder if the person wanting to stop eating but is unable to do so because of the compulsion which also symptoms of substance abuse and drug dependence (Butcher, 2010).

Works Cited

Andrés-perpiña, S., Lozano-serra, E., Puig, O., Lera-miguel, S., Lázaro, L., & Castro-fornieles, J. (2011). Clinical and biological correlates of adolescent anorexia nervosa with impaired cognitive profile. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 20(11-12), 541-9. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00787-011-0216-y
Butcher, J (2010). Abnormal Psychology (14th ed). Pearson Learning Solutions. Retrieved from http://digitalbookshelf.argosy.edu/books/0558241484/id/ch10lev2sec20

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