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physical and emotional impact of eating disorders
case studies of anorexia
effects of eating disorders on society
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Written and narrated by Kelsey Osgood, How to Completely Disappear: On Modern Anorexia tells the story of Osgood and her battle with anorexia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa, which is referred to simply as anorexia, is an eating disorder that is often associated with a skipping meals and an unnaturally thin body shape. A person who suffers with anorexia is often very underweight, but the weight does not solely defy the eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa can be seen in a person who often skips meals and intakes very few calories. The author begins her struggles with anorexia at the age of fourteen, and she continues her battle throughout her entire teenage years. Osgood experiences firsthand the devastating effects of not having the proper nutrition. How to Completely Disappear: On Modern Anorexia is told through her perspective as Osgood relives countless hospital visits and great weight loss.
The author reveals that she personally sought out weight loss tips and websites that encouraged anorexia nervosa. As young as fourteen, she began to see herself as overweight once Osgood had become ...
Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
“I wish to be the thinnest girl at school, or maybe the thinnest 11 year old on the entire planet.” (Lori Gottlieb) Lori is a fun, loving, and intelligent straight A student. In fact, she is so intelligent that even adults consider her to be an outcast. She grows up in Beverly Hills, California with her self-centered mother, distant father, careless brother, and best friend, Chrissy, whom is a parakeet. Through her self-conscious mother, maturing friends, and her friend’s mother’s obsession with dieting, she becomes more aware of her body and physical appearance. Something that once meant nothing to Lori now is her entire world. She started off by just skipping breakfast on her family vacation to Washington, D.C., soon to escalate to one meal a day, and eventually hardly anything other than a few glasses of water. Lori’s friends at school begin to compliment her weight loss and beg for her advice on how she did so. But as Lori once read in one of her many dieting books, her dieting skills are her “little secret”, and she intends on keeping it that way. It is said, “Women continue to follow the standards of the ideal thi...
On an ordinary day, Leslie opens the main door of her house, when she walked inside she saw her mom and sister Islla sitting on the coach. Islla was crying, and Leslie ask her “What happened?’ Why you crying?’”. Islla told her that she is pregnant and that she wants to keep the baby even if her boyfriend will be against the baby, but she will need to drop out from her University. In a few minutes of thinking, Leslie decided and told her sister “You don’t need to drop out I will help you to babysit with my nephew.”
Anorexia Nervosa may be described directly as an eating disease classified by a deficit in weight, not being able to maintain weight appropriate for one’s height. Anorexia means loss of appetite while Anorexia Nervosa means a lack of appetite from nervous causes. Before the 1970s, most people never heard of Anorexia Nervosa. It was identified and named in the 1870s, before then people lived with this mental illness, not knowing what it was, or that they were even sick. It is a mental disorder, which distorts an individual’s perception of how they look. Looking in the mirror, they may see someone overweight
The author’s intended audience is most likely to people who are experiencing the disorder or are interested in knowing more about eating disorders. When Lia was admitted to New Seasons, her rehabilitation facility, she relates her experience to someone who has gone through the struggles in that kind of facility. Lia was expected to be “a good girl [by not poking holes] or write depressing poetry and [eat and eat]” (Anderson 18). Her struggles in the facility allowed the audience who experienced this disorder to relate their experiences. In addition, people who choose to starve...
The book Unwind by Neal Shusterman is about the concept of unwinding an human being. Unwinding is the concept or process in which a child or teen’s organs and other parts of the body are taken out. These organs and body parts are then used to save other people’s lives. For example if a person doesn't have an arm then they could get an arm from an unwind. If someone is missing an organ then they could get one from an unwind. Many people may say or think if you unwind a person you are killing the person. However the government of this society says that they are still alive but just in a different way.
Laurie was a size fourteen at age eleven and weighed one-hundred fifty-five pounds. She went through elementary school being the kid that everyone called fat and never felt love from any of her peers. Even a counselor at her after-school YMCA program made an example of her to the other children. The teacher told all the children that she used to be as big as Laurie. Putting aside all the criticism from her fellow peers and teachers she found the courage and strength to lose weight. She began doing sit-ups and eating “healthier”. In all reality, she was eating less and less every day. She went from a size fourteen to a nine and then from a nine to a five. This all happened to her between summer and Christmas. By the following summer Laurie was a size double zero. During the following school year, she was called to the nurse’s office to be weighed and the scale read ninety-seven pounds. Laurie had become anorexic from the mentally abusing childhood she experienced from her peers.
Anorexia is a serious disorder that involves compulsive dieting and excessive weight loss. According to The National Institute of Mental Health, anorexia is characterized by emaciation, a relentless pursuit of thinness, and extremely disturbed eating behaviors (Parks, 2009). The “disturbed eating behaviors” associated with anorexia include unhealthy weight loss and weight control methods, behaviors such as abusing or self-induced vomiting, and a distorted view of one’s personal appearance (Shepphird, 2010). Anorexics in general survive on 500 calories or less per day, and they count every calorie they consume (Parks, 2009). Symptoms often also include the inability or refusal to maintain a healthy weight and a great fear of gaining weight (Shepphird, 2010).
Anorexia Nervosa or just Anorexia, is characterized by an extreme and intense fear of gaining weight, which leads the person to pursue continuous weight loss. Sometimes, a diet can begin innocently, but anorexics don't stop at a rational point. They keep going until their lives may be threatened. Anorexics may use many methods of weight loss along with dieting and fasting. They use excessive exercise, diet pills, laxatives, diuretics, or vomiting as ways of feeling thinner or controlling calories, but whatever the method, the primary goal is thinness. One may wonder why anorexics don't stop dieting once they become skinny. The reason is that a major characteristic of anorexia is a problem called distorted body image. This means that anorexics look at their bodies very differently than other people do. When they look in the mirror, they never see themselves as being too thin. They "feel fat" And usually overestimate their weight. If an anorexic is told she is too skinny, she is more likely to be happy than upset. Many times, anorexics don't believe that they have a problem. Using weight reduction is just a way of coping with other pressures.
In 1978, Brunch called anorexia nervosa a 'new disease' and noted that the condition seemed to overtake ?the daughters of the well-to-do, educated and successful families.? Today it is acknowledged and accepted that anorexia affects more than just one gender or socio-economic class; however, much of the current research is focused on the female gender. ?Anorexia nervosa is characterized by extreme dieting, intense fear of gaining weight, and obsessive exercising. The weight loss eventually produces a variety of physical symptoms associated with starvation: sleep disturbance, cessation of menstruation, insensitivity to pain, loss of hair on the head, low blood pressure, a variety of cardiovascular problems and reduced body temperature. Between 10% and 15% of anorexics literally starve themselves to death; others die because of some type of cardiovascular dysfunction (Bee and Boyd, 2001).?
Most of you probably already know what anorexia is, however in case you don't anorexia is basically a disease involving self-starvation. Anorexia victims have a very low "ideal" weight. It might begin as a normal diet carried to extremes, reducing their food intake to a bare minimum. Rules are made of how much food they can eat in one day and how much exercise is required after eating certain amounts of food. With anorexia, there is a strong almost overwhelming fear of putting on weight and they are preoccupied with the way that their bodies look. Anorexia sometimes involves use of laxatives, diet pills, or self-induced vomiting to lose or to keep weight off (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/anorexianervosa.htm). Anorexics may show symptoms such as extreme weight loss for no medical reason. Also, many deny their hunger, chew excessively, choosing low calorie foods and exercising excessively (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health).
Out of all mental illnesses found throughout the world, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate. Anorexia nervosa is one of the more common eating disorders found in society, along with bulimia nervosa. Despite having many definitions, anorexia nervosa is simply defined as the refusal to maintain a normal body weight (Michel, 2003). Anorexia nervosa is derived from two Latin words meaning “nervous inability to eat” (Frey, 2002). Although anorexics, those suffering from anorexia, have this “nervous inability to eat,” it does not mean that they do not have an appetite—anorexics literally starve themselves. They feel that they cannot trust or believe their perceptions of hunger and satiation (Abraham, 2008). Anorexics lose at least 15 percent of normal weight for height (Michel, 2003). This amount of weight loss is significant enough to cause malnutrition with impairment of normal bodily functions and rational thinking (Lucas, 2004). Anorexics have an unrealistic view of their bodies—they believe that they are overweight, even if the mirror and friends or family say otherwise. They often weigh themselves because they possess an irrational fear of gaining weight or becoming obese (Abraham, 2008). Many anorexics derive their own self-esteem and self-worth from body weight, size, and shape (“Body Image and Disordered Eating,” 2000). Obsession with becoming increasingly thinner and limiting food intake compromises the health of individuals suffering from anorexia. No matter the amount of weight they lose or how much their health is in jeopardy, anorexics will never be satisfied with their body and will continue to lose more weight.
I was deeply touched by this book. I found myself in tears as I read of the challenges and triumphs of the main character Melody. Due to the short period of time we had to read this book, I thought I would skim through it and try and find the main highlights to write this post. I found that after the first chapter, I was hooked and read the book in one sitting. I could not put the book down. That to me is a sign of an amazing writer and Sharon M. Draper is all of that, if not more. She speaks of her reason for writing this poignant and meaning story of a brilliant mind trapped in an uncooperative body on her website. Ms. Draper has a daughter who is disabled, and so she has first-hand experience in coping with the day-to-day challenges of parenting and loving a not so perfect child.
Anorexia nervosa is a possible life-threatening eating disorder in which the people starve themselves through restriction of food in order to be thin. Symptoms of people suffering from anorexia nervosa are having a weight that is less than eighty-five percent of what is considered normal for their age and weight, an illogical fear of gaining weight, a distorted perception of self-image and body, and a lack of menstruation. Additionally, women who suffer from anorexia nervosa are obsessed with their body weight, weighing themselves, looking at themselves in the mirror, and exercising. Individuals with anorexia nervosa have a distorted perception of their body because even when they are thin they view themselves as too fat. They never think they are thin enough. Anorexia nervosa usually begins in the early to middle adolescent years to predominantly non-Latina White females. On the other hand, Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder in which the person goes on an eating binge and then purges. While people with anorexia essentially hate food, people with bulimia are preoccupied with it. Moreover, while anorexics appear to be unhealthy, bulimia is usually difficult to detect in individuals because they typically fall within normal weight range. Similar to anorexics, bulimics have a strong fear of becoming overweight, feel depressed or anxious, and have a distorted body
“Anorexia Nervosa is a serious eating disorder, primarily of young women in their teens and early twenties, that is categorized especially by a pathological fear of weight gain, leading to faulty eating patterns, malnutrition, and usually excessive weight loss.” ("Anorexia Nervosa")