Serotonin: a neurotransmitter involved in depression also has an inhibitory effect on eating behavior. Norepinephrine is both a neurotransmitter and a hormone; abnormalities in either capacity may affect eating behavior.
What is the psychological explanation for anorexia?
Psychological explanations for anorexia nervosa focus on anorexia being caused or triggered by dysfunctional families (e.g. family systems theory); social learning (observation and imitation of role models); and cognitive factors (irrational beliefs and distortions).
What are the psychological consequences of anorexia?
In addition to the physical risks of anorexia, this disorder can also harm an individual mentally. Common psychological effects of anorexia include anxiety, depression, substance abuse, body dysmorphia, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
What personality factors are associated with anorexia?
Individuals with anorexia nervosa are known to have high levels of harm avoidance, a personality trait that is characterized by worry, pessimistic thinking, doubt, and shyness.
What mental illness is associated with anorexia?
Borderline, obsessive-compulsive, and avoidant personality disorders are some of the most common types of personality disorders diagnosed in people with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge-eating disorder.
How does the behaviourist approach explain anorexia?
A cognitive behavioural theory of the maintenance of anorexia nervosa is proposed. It is argued that an extreme need to control eating is the central feature of the disorder, and that in Western societies a tendency to judge self-worth in terms of shape and weight is superimposed on this need for self-control.
How does classical conditioning explain anorexia?
This may well lead to eating disorders like anorexia. Classical Conditioning suggests that men and women may come to associate thinness (which ought to be a Neutral Stimulus) with glamour and beauty (an Unconditioned Stimulus); this happens because both get the same approval and admiration (the Unconditioned Response).
What are three long-term effects of anorexia?
- Bone weakening (osteoporosis).
- Anemia.
- Seizures.
- Thyroid problems.
- Lack of vitamins and minerals.
- Low potassium levels in the blood.
- Decrease in white blood cells.
- Amenorrhea (absence of menstruation in females).
What are 3 physiological changes that occur with anorexia nervosa?
Common signs and symptoms include loss of subcutaneous fat tissue, orthostatic hypotension, bradycardia, impaired menstrual function, hair loss, and hypothermia.
What are common behaviors of anorexia?
Behavioral symptoms of anorexia may include attempts to lose weight by: Severely restricting food intake through dieting or fasting. Exercising excessively. Bingeing and self-induced vomiting to get rid of food, which may include the use of laxatives, enemas, diet aids or herbal products.
What personality traits do people with eating disorders have?
Personality traits commonly associated with eating disorder (ED) are high perfectionism, impulsivity, harm avoidance, reward dependence, sensation seeking, neuroticism, and obsessive-compulsiveness in combination with low self-directedness, assertiveness, and cooperativeness [8-11].
Do people with anorexia have insight?
Patients with anorexia nervosa may be particularly impaired by poor insight (Arbel et al., 2013), as this disorder is characterized by distorted cognitions about body weight and shape and ambivalence about and variability in motivation to recover (Vitousek et al., 1998).
Do eating disorders make you lose your personality?
Your eating disorder has its own personality. In fact, if you have spent any length of time under the possessive, domineering influence of an eating disorder, you know the illness can turn you into a different person altogether.
Is anorexia a psychosis?
The body image disturbance at the heart of anorexia nervosa is a false perception akin to the perceptual disorders found in schizophrenia. Additional psychotic features associated with eating disorders-usually transient-have been attributed to the effects of starvation and electrolyte imbalance.
Is anorexia a mental or physical?
Like other eating disorders, anorexia is both a mental and a physical illness. It is a complex medical and psychiatric illnesses that can have serious health, personal and relational consequences.
Is anorexia a form of schizophrenia?
An eating disorder may develop as a secondary condition to schizophrenia. And in some cases, a person with anorexia will develop psychotic symptoms but doesn’t necessarily have schizophrenia.
Social Learning Theory attributes the etiology of eating disorders to the emphasis placed on thinness in Western society. Women often receive positive attention for being thin, or even for attempting weight loss. This attention then serves as reinforcement of the thin-ideal (Levine & Smolak, 2001).
What are the different psychology perspectives?
- The Psychodynamic Perspective.
- The Behavioral Perspective.
- The Cognitive Perspective.
- The Biological Perspective.
- The Cross-Cultural Perspective.
- The Evolutionary Perspective.
- The Humanistic Perspective.
Do role models influence anorexia?
In relation to anorexia nervosa, important role models might be mothers, peers or celebrities in the media. Research has shown that mothers who complain about their weight are more likely to have children who have their own weight concerns.
What are some examples of classical conditioning?
For example, whenever you come home wearing a baseball cap, you take your child to the park to play. So, whenever your child sees you come home with a baseball cap, he is excited because he has associated your baseball cap with a trip to the park. This learning by association is classical conditioning.
How does classical conditioning affect hunger?
Another example of classical conditioning is known as the appetizer effect. If there are otherwise neutral stimuli that consistently predict a meal, they could cause people to become hungry, because those stimuli induce involuntary changes in the body, as a preparation for digestion.
When does anorexia become irreversible?
The first victim of anorexia is often the bones. “You’re supposed to be pouring in bone, and you’re losing it instead.” Such bone loss can set in as soon as six months after anorexic behavior begins, and is one of the most irreversible complications of the disease.
Does anorexia damage the brain?
“In addition to the mind, eating disorders can also impact the brain as these conditions straddle both a psychological and physical illness, and the physical complications can directly cause damage to organs including the brain.”
What is the life expectancy for anorexia?
5-10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease and 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years. Anorexia nervosa has the highest death rate of any psychiatric illness (including major depression).
Why do anorexics crave sugar?
To conclude, sugar is an important source of energy for the body. It is important for brain function and meeting requirements helps to prevent protein being used for energy. This is particularly important patients with anorexia nervosa who often need to build up their muscle mass after a period of starvation.