Chapter 8. Physical Development

Introduction

Jamie Grill/The Image Bank/Getty Images

As you learned in your book’s chapter on adolescent physical development, eating disorders are different from normal dieting. With an eating disorder, eating is the sole focus of life. There are three major forms of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. A hallmark of each eating disorder is a distorted body image (Espeset et al., 2011). Symptoms of eating disorders generally emerge in late adolescence or early adulthood.

8.1 Activity

In this activity, you will take on the role of a practitioner who is working with a patient suffering from an eating disorder. Use your text to answer the questions below.

Imagine that you are a practitioner who is working with Alicia. When asked to describe her eating disorder, Alicia says: “When I look at myself all I see is fat. I monitor what I eat every day and spend hours exercising trying to lose this weight. I know I have lost some weight and have not menstruated in three months. But I know I have more weight to lose. I just feel so fat.”

When doing your initial assessment of Alicia you realize that she actually weighs two-thirds of the ideal weight for someone of her age, sex, and height.

8.2 Something to Consider

Each of these three eating disorders poses serious health threats. Anorexia is a life-threatening disease. When people reach two-thirds of their ideal weight or less, they need to be hospitalized and fed—intravenously, if necessary—to stave off death (Diamanti et al., 2008).

Bulimia nervosa is typically not life threatening because the person’s weight often stays within a normal range. However, because this disorder involves frequent binging and either purging or fasting, bulimia can seriously compromise health. Additionally, the purging episodes can cause mouth sores, ulcers in the esophagus, and the loss of tooth enamel due to being exposed to stomach acid.

Binge eating disorder, which first appeared in the 2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), is intimately tied to obesity and so presents a serious threat to health (Myers & Wiman, 2014). It involves recurrent out-of-control eating. Binge eating disorder, like anorexia and bulimia, can wreak enduring havoc on the person’s life (Goldschmidt et al., 2014).

The best place to start with the treatment of eating disorders is changing how the patients view their bodies. Because promoting self-esteem is of vital importance, one treatment for eating disorders (dialectic behavior therapy) teaches ways to increase self-efficacy as well as meditation (Lenz et al., 2014). Other creative techniques have also been developed to help women particularly view their self realistically, such as exposing women to images of themselves repeatedly (Trentowska, Svaldi, & Tuschen-Caffier, 2014).

What would you do if you suspected a friend or loved one was suffering from an eating disorder?