The Role Of Eating Disorders In Western Cultures

Eating disorders are considered to be among the deadliest psychological disorders with some of the highest rates of death attributed to the illness.
According to the American National Eating Disorder Association, 42 percent of first to third grade females want to be thinner Over half of teenage females have use troubling weight control methods like fasting, skipping meals, smoking, vomiting, or taking laxatives. The rate of new case eating disorders in Western cultures has been increasing since the 1950s, and today in the US, an estimated 20 million females have suffered from a clinically significant eating disorder at some point in their life. In order to assess the prevalence of eating disorders across cultures we first need to define what they are.

Eating

Those suffering from Anorexia Nervosa, most often adolescent females, essentially maintain a starving diet and eventually n abnormally low body weight. Anorexia can often start as a diet that quickly spirals out of control as a person becomes obsessed with continuing weight loss while still feeling overweight. The DSM5 delineates two sibtypes of the disorder. The first involves restriction would usually consists of an extremely low-calorie diet, or excessive exercise. The second type is the binge/purge which involves episodes of binge eating, combined with the restriction behavior. And it the low body mass that is the defining characteristic of Anorexia Nervosa. A refusal to maintain a weight at or about what would normally be considered minimally healthy. Another common eating disorder is Bulimia Nervosa. While Anorexia Nervosa is characterized primarily by the refusal to maintain a minimum body weight,