Eating disorders are complex conditions that involve both psychological and social factors. The document discusses three main eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating disorder. People with these disorders often use food and control of their eating behaviors to cope with difficult emotions. Common behaviors include restrictive eating, bingeing and purging, excessive exercise, and preoccupation with body weight and shape. The development of eating disorders is influenced by factors like low self-esteem, depression, cultural pressures around thinness, and a history of abuse or trauma.

1. Eating Disorders
Sarah Jweihan

2. What are eating
disorders?
• Eating disorders are complex conditions that
arise from a combination of long-standing
behavioral, emotional, psychological,
interpersonal, and social factors.

3. What are they?
• People with eating disorders often use food
and the control of food in an attempt to
compensate for feelings and emotions that
may otherwise seem over-whelming.
• For some, dieting, bingeing, and purging may
begin as a way to cope with painful emotions
and to feel in control of one’s life, but
ultimately, these behaviors will damage a
person’s physical and emotional health, self-
esteem, and sense of competence and control.

4. Disorders
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Bulimia
• Binge Eating Disorder

5. Anorexia nervosa
• Characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.
• Symptoms include:
• Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for height, body type,
age, and activity level
• Intense fear of weight gain or being “fat”
• Feeling “fat” or overweight despite dramatic weight loss
• Loss of menstrual periods
• Extreme concern with body weight and shape

6. Binge Eating Disorder/
Compulsive Overeating
• Characterized primarily by periods of uncontrolled,
impulsive, or continuous eating beyond the point of
feeling comfortably full.
• While there is no purging, there may be sporadic fasts
or repetitive diets and often feelings of shame or self-
hatred after a binge.
• People who overeat compulsively may struggle with
anxiety, depression, and loneliness, which can
contribute to their unhealthy episodes of binge eating.
• Body weight may vary from normal to mild, moderate,
or severe obesity.

7. Factors
• Disordered eating is NOT just about food and
diets…
• Can you list the other factors that play a role in
the development or continuation of
disordered eating behaviors?

8. Psychological factors
•Low self-esteem
•Feelings of inadequacy or lack of
control in life
•Depression, anxiety, anger, or
loneliness

9. Interpersonal Factors
•Troubled family and personal
relationships
•Difficulty expressing emotions and
feelings
•History of being teased or ridiculed
based on size or weight
•History of physical or sexual abuse

10. Social Factors
• Cultural pressures that glorify "thinness" and
place value on obtaining the "perfect body"
• Narrow definitions of beauty that include only
women and men of specific body weights and
shapes
• Cultural norms that value people on the basis
of physical appearance and not inner qualities
and strengths

11. Other Factors
• Scientists are still researching possible
biochemical or biological causes of eating
disorders. In some individuals with eating
disorders, certain chemicals in the brain that
control hunger, appetite, and digestion have
been found to be imbalanced. The exact
meaning and implications of these imbalances
remains under investigation

12. Behavior
• Share some of the behaviors that you have
witnessed from people struggling with and ED
regarding food and exercise.
• What is the common theme for these
behaviors?

13. Food Behavior
• Anorexic
• The person skips meals, takes only tiny portions, will
not eat in front of other people, eats in ritualistic ways,
and mixes strange food combinations. May chew
mouthfuls of food but spits them out before
swallowing.
• Grocery shops and cooks for the entire household, but
will not eat the tasty meals.
• Always has an excuse not to eat -- is not hungry, just
ate with a friend, is feeling ill, is upset, and so forth.

14. Exercise
• The person exercises excessively and
compulsively. May tire easily, keeping up a harsh
regimen only through sheer will power. As time
passes, athletic performance suffers. Even so, s/he
refuses to change the routine.
• May develop strange eating patterns, supposedly
to enhance athletic performance. May consume
sports drinks and supplements, but total calories
are less than what an active lifestyle requires.

15. Exercise
• Up to five percent of high school girls and seven
percent of middle-school girls have tried steroids in
attempts to get bigger and stronger in sports and also
to reduce body fat and control weight.
• Some say they don't mind gaining weight as long as
it's muscle weight, not fat.
• Male abuse of steroids is also well documented.

16. Feelings
• Has trouble talking about feelings, especially anger. Denies anger, saying
something like, "Everything is OK. I am just tired and stressed." Escapes
stress by turning to binge food, exercise, or anorexic rituals.
• Becomes moody, irritable, cross, snappish, and touchy. Responds to
confrontation and even low-intensity interactions with tears, tantrums,
or withdrawal. Feels s/he does not fit in and therefore avoids friends and
activities. Withdraws into self and feelings, becoming socially isolated.
• Feels inadequate, fearful of not measuring up. Frequently experiences
depression, anxiety, guilt, loneliness, and at times overwhelming
emptiness, meaninglessness, hopelessness, and despair.

17. Social Behavior
• Tries to please everyone and withdraws when this is not possible. Tries to
take care of others when s/he is the person who needs care. May present self
as needy and dependent or conversely as fiercely independent and rejecting
of all attempts to help. Anorexics tend to avoid sexual activity. Bulimics may
engage in casual or even promiscuous sex.
• Person tries to control what and where the family eats. To the dismay of
others, s/he consistently selects low-fat, low-sugar non-threatening -- and
unappealing -- foods and restaurants that provide these "safe" items.
• Relationships tend to be either superficial or dependent. Person craves true
intimacy but at the same time is terrified of it. As in all other areas of life,
anorexics tend to be rigidly controlling while bulimics have problems with
lack of impulse control that can lead to rash and regrettable decisions about
sex, money, stealing, commitments, careers, and all forms of social risk
taking.

18. Communicating
• Set a time to talk. Set aside a time for a
private, respectful meeting with your friend to
discuss your concerns openly and honestly in a
caring, supportive way. Make sure you will be
some place away from other distractions.
• Communicate your concerns. Share your
memories of specific times when you felt
concerned about your friend’s eating or
exercise behaviors. Explain that you think
these things may indicate that there could be a
problem that needs professional attention.

19. Body Image
• Body image is . . .
• How you see yourself when you look in the mirror or when you picture
yourself in your mind.
• What you believe about your own appearance (including your memories,
assumptions, and generalizations).
• How you feel about your body, including your height, shape, and weight.
• How you sense and control your body as you move. How you feel in your
body, not just about your body.
• 3 D’s
• Dieting, Body Dissatisfaction, Drive for Thinness

21. Dieting
• Americans spend more than $40 billion dollars a year on dieting and diet-related
products.
• That’s roughly equivalent to the amount the U.S. Federal Government spends on
education each year.
• It is estimated that 40-50% of American women are trying to lose weight at any point in
time.
• One recent study revealed that 91% of women on a college campus had dieted; 22%
dieted "often" or "always."
• Researchers estimate that 40-60% of high school girls are on diets
• Another study found that 46% of 9-11 year olds are sometimes or very often on diets
• And, another researcher discovered that 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls surveyed reported
wanting to be thinner

23. Media
• Advertisers create their message based on what they think you
will want to see and what they think will affect you and compel
you to buy their product. Just because they think their approach
will work with people like you doesn’t mean it has to work with
you as an individual.
• As individuals, we decide how to experience the media messages
we encounter. We can choose to use a filter that helps us
understand what the advertiser wants us to think or believe and
then choose whether we want to think or believe that message.
We can choose a filter that protects our self-esteem and body
image.

25. Actress Jennifer Aniston for Vanity
Fair, May 2001
• "The media create this
wonderful illusion-but
the amount of
airbrushing that goes
into those beauty
magazines, the hours
of hair and makeup!
It's impossible to live
up to, because it's not
real."

26. - Elizabeth Hurley for Details magazine
• "On my last Cosmo
cover," she
explains, "they
added about five
inches to my
breasts. It's very
funny. I have, like,
massive knockers.
Huge. Absolutely
massive."

27. Christy Turlington
• Christy Turlington explains to Elle
magazine... "Advertising is so
manipulative," she says. "There's
not one picture in magazines
today that's not airbrushed." ...
"It's funny," Turlington continues.
"When women see pictures of
models in fashion magazines and
say, 'I can never look like that,'
what they don't realize is that no
one can look that good without
the help of a computer.