Bulimia_Nervosa

Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder with devastating physical and psychological effects. It’s defined as two or more episodes of rapid consumption of a sizeable amount of food every week for at least three months. The binges are often followed by vomiting or purging and may alternate with obsessive exercise and refusal to eat. The symptoms can happen at any age from early adolescence to 40 but usually become clinically serious in late adolescence. Bulimia is not as dangerous to health as anorexia but it has many unpleasant physical effects including fatigue, weakness, constipation, fluid retention, swollen salivary glands, erosion of dental enamel, sore throat from vomiting, and scars on the hand from inducing vomiting. Overuse of laxatives can cause stomach upset and other digestive troubles. Other dangers are dehydration, loss of potassium, and tearing of the esophagus. These eating disorders also occur in men and older women, but less frequently. Women with diabetes who have a high rate of bulimia often lose weight after an eating binge by reducing their dose of insulin. It is very dangerous thou and can damage eye tissue and raises the risk of retina damage which can lead to blindness. Many anorexic women also indulge in occasional eating binges, and half of them make the transition to bulimia. About 40% of the most severely bulimic patients have a history of anorexia. It is not clear whether the combination of anorexia with bingeing and purging is more debilitating physically or emotionally than anorexia alone. According to some research, anorexic women who binge and purge are less stable emotionally and more likely to commit suicide. There was one recent study thou which says just the opposite, suggesting they are more likely to recover. From what I’ve learned so far it seems nobody knows the exact cause of the disorder but a variety of psychological, social, cultural, familial and biochemical theories are being investigated. Bulimia has been recognized for a much shorter time than anorexia and there is less research on its origins. One theory is that bulimic women lack all the parental affection and involvement they need and soothe themselves with food as compensation. The overeating helps suppress negative thoughts which they are hardly aware of but with the later consequence of shame and self hatred. One of the studies found that bulimic women differed from depressed and anxious women in several ways. They were more likely to be overweight, to have overweight parents, and to have begun menstruating early. They were also more likely to say that their parents had high expectations for them but limited communication with them. The parents themselves were not interviewed so that really just gives one side of the story. Surprisingly the risk for bulimia was not related to social class, income, education, occupation, the occupation of parents, or even an outgoing or introverted personality. A woman's childhood relationship with her mother was not associated with bulimia but neglect by her father was. Women with bulimia had lower self esteem and more neurotic symptoms and they were more likely to say they were not in control of their lives. They also had a slimmer ideal body image and they dieted and exercised more. The risk factors for narrowly and broadly defined bulimia were similar. Women with broadly defined bulimia had high rates of phobias, alcoholism, anxiety disorders, anorexia nervosa, and panic attacks. Their lifetime 50 percent rate of major depression was also high but bulimia had no distinctive association with that more common disorder. All other things being equal a woman with a history of major depression was 2.2 times more likely to be diagnosed with bulimia as well. The corresponding odds ratio for phobias was 2.4, for alcoholism 3.2, and for anorexia nervosa 8.2. In most studies of patients treated for both bulimia and depression, bulimia is found to precede depression but in this group of largely untreated people the depression had usually come first. In some families of women with bulimia, the problem may be more serious than strictness, over protectiveness, or inadequate nurturing. After reading the three articles I choose to complete my research, I believe childhood sexual abuse may be the most common cause of eating disorders. The connection has not been confirmed and some recent studies raise serious doubts about it but the connection to me was obvious. I did read that women with bulimia did not report more sexual abuse than an anxious and depressed woman in general. The problem of bulimia is closely related to the problem of obesity, since almost all bulimic women either are or think they are overweight. According to a widely accepted theory, each person's body weight has a biological set point that is strongly influenced by heredity and difficult to change. Studies in several countries have found that mothers and their biological daughters have a similar weight-height ratio, while the correlation between adoptive parents and adoptive children is low. According to the set point theory, metabolism during a diet shows to counteract the effect of reduced intake until it settles at a lower level consistent with the new weight. A person who continues the same diet will eventually regain weight until the set point is reached. Many individuals with bulimia do not seek help until they reach their thirties or forties when their eating behavior is deep-rooted and difficult to change. Bulimia is often treated more successfully than anorexia because bulimic patients usually want to be treated. Most antidepressant drugs relieve the symptoms and usually work more quickly than they relieve depression. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are probably most useful because they have relatively few side effects and tend to cause weight loss rather than weight gain. Bulimia nervosa was not the first topic that came to mind when I was choosing which articles to use for my research, but I decided to choose it in the hopes I would learn something which would help me in treating patients when I begin my career as a counselor. Now after a few days of research I’m beginning to believe that counseling in bulimia is probably more an obstacle then actual help. It seems to me now the solution is in finding a way of retraining your brain. Bulimics need to make themselves aware and reset their control patterns. For many people is seems that bulimia is just like a TV show in the mind. One they endlessly star in. One that repeats over and over again. The cure for bulimia, it seems to me, very much lays in being the 'director' of the show. References Mazzeo, S., Mitchell, K., Bulik, C., Aggen, S., Kendler, K., & Neale, M.. (2010). A twin study of specific bulimia nervosa symptoms. Psychological Medicine, 40(7), 1203-1213. Retrieved November 13, 2010, from ProQuest Psychology Journals. (Document ID: 2051557501). Treasure, J., Claudino, A., & Zucker, N.. (2010). Eating disorders. The Lancet, 375(9714), 583-93. Retrieved November 13, 2010, from ProQuest Psychology Journals. (Document ID: 1963413241). Hartmann, A., Zeeck, A., & Van Der Kooij, A.. (2009). Severity of Bulimia Nervosa. Psychopathology, 42(1), 22-31. Retrieved November 13, 2010, from ProQuest Psychology Journals. (Document ID: 1631649701).