Universitatea de Medicina si

Farmacie “Grigore T.Popa” Iasi

Facultatea de Bioinginerie
Medicala

Specializare: BFKT

Anul de studiu: 1

Seria: 5

Disciplina: Engleza-curs

Nume student: Baltag

Prenume student: Antonia-Daniela

Eating disorders:anorexia and bulimia

An eating disorder is a mental disorder defined by abnormal eating behaviors negatively

affect a person’s physical or mental health. One way to understand the development of eating
disorders is to recognise that are -predisposing factors(those that create risk for the
individual); -precipitating factors(those that triger the onset of the eating-disorders behavior);
and perpetuating factors(those that “stamp in” an eating-disordered identity or a “stance” that
is taken toward others through disordered eating that serves many purposes including the
development of emotional separation in order to create a sense of self.

Predisposing factors include problems with sociocultural pressures, particularly for young
women to be thin; hereditary factors; family up-bringing; and mastering developmental mile-
stones. Dicting itself is one of key forerunners for the development of eatng disorders. In
bulimia, with few excceptions, periods of prolonged dicting precede the onset of bringe-purge
behavior.

Precipitating factors commonly seen at the onset of an eating disorder involve the emotional
and biological upset of puberty: childhood and early adult trauma(particulary sexual abuse);
and the developmental stress of forming a sense of self and individuating from family origin.

Perpetuating factors include embracing an “anorexic(or bulimic) stance” toward parents or

spuse in order to create a separate identity. Those who are seen as “chronic cases” seem to
have established an eating disorder identity that is based on the resignation that one cannot
break free from the chains of the eating disorder and/or on the fear that giving up one’s
identity will result in loss of close relationships, feelings of being special, and, essentially, the
loss of an entire way of life.

Anorexia and bulimia are both eating disorders. They can have similiar symptoms, such as
disorted body image. However, they’re characterized by different food-related behaviors. For
example, people who have anorexia nervosa severely reduce their food intake to lose weight.
People have bulimia eat an excessive amount of food in a short period of time, then purge or
use other methods to prevent weight gain.

Anorexia nervosa. The term “anorexia” nervosa was first used by English physician Sir
Wiliam Gull, in 1873. Sir William was in error:anorexia nervosa patients do not have a lack
of appetite. They are often hungry, but suppres their hunger and refuse to eat normally,
because of their relentless desire to be thin, even to the point of becoming emaciated, and
because of their fear that they lose control of their eating behaviour.

The physical symptoms can be severe and life-threatening. They include: severe weight loss,
insomnia, dehydration, constipation, weakness and fatigue, dizziness and fainting, thinning
and breaking air, bluish tinge to the fingers, dry, yellowish skin, inability to tolerate cold,
amenorrhea, or absence of menstruation, downy hair on the boody, arms, and face,
arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat.

Some experts claims that a disorted body image - the individ perceving her body as larger,
wider, and fatter than it is in reality-is a specific feature of enorexia nervosa. This is
inaccurate as many other women, such as pregnant women, who have recently changed their
body shape, have the same disturbed body-image. It is true that many severely emaciated
women suffering from anorexia nervosa lose insight into how emaciated they are; in other
word, they deny their thiness. These women have a grossly disorted perception of their body
size. But it is also known that many women who have normal eating behaviour over-estimate
their body size, and in some cases overestimate it considerably more than do women who
have anorexia nervosa, especially whwn looking at their hip width and their body from the
side. It is therefore unlikely that a disorted body image is a feature of anorexia nervosa,
except perhaps among those who are severely ill.

It is also possible that some of the reports which say that a disorted body image is a specific
feature of anorexia nervosa may be due to the patient deceiving the doctor, as in the
following case history.

Women who have anorexia nervosa tend to look at parts of their body, rather their body as a
whole, when they look at themselves in a mirror. They see their abdomen as ‘bulgy’ and they
want it to be flat.

When the perceptions of a body image by a woman who has anorexia nervosa are further
analysed, it becomes apparent that what the woman was saying was that when her weight was
normal she saw parts of her body, for example her thighs, as too heavy, and, although she
was now emaciated, she still saw her thighs as haevier and bigger than the rest of her body. In
other words, although she knew that she was thin she felt that she was fat. These features
have been discussed by a Committee of the American Psychiatric Associations who have
developed criteria for the diagnosis of anorexia nervosa. The criteria indicate that there are
two types of anorexia nervosa.

1.Anorexia nervosa - restricting type or dieters. This affects 60 per cent of suffers, who lose
weight primarily by dieting, fasting, or taking excessive exercise, or all of these methods.
Occasionally they misuse laxatives.

2.Anorexia nervosa – binge-eating/purging type or vomiters and purges. These women have
episodes of binge-eating and try to prevent the food being absorbed by self-induced vomiting
and/or the abuse of purgatives or enemas. In these behaviours their resemble women who
have bulimia nervosa.

Bulimia nervosa. Bulimia means to eat like an ox. Although people have been known to ‘eat
like oxen’ from antiquity, it was not until 1979 that a London psychiatrist, Gerald Russell,
identified a number of his anorexia nervosa patients who had an ‘ominous variation’ of the
disorder, the variation being that they periodically went on eating binges.

The physical symptoms can be severe and life-threatening. They include: weight that
increases and decreases in significant amounts, between 5 and 20 pounds in a week, chapped
or cracked lips due to dehydration, bloodshot eyes, or eyes with busted blood vessels,
callouses, sores, or scars on the knuckles from inducing comiting,mouth sensivity, likely due
to eroding tooth enamel and receding gums, swollen lymph nodes.

Subsequent studies showed that although about 40 per cent of anorexia nervosa patients
episodically binge-ate, people who did not have anorexia nervosa binge-ate frequently(more
than twice a week) and persisted in the behaviour for more than three months.

It became clear that these patients had a separate eating disorder which was given the name
bulimia, and later callled bulimia nervosa. This is not the same as the bange-eating disorder;
the suffers, as well as feeling that they have a lack of control over their eating behaviour,
binge-eat very frequently, and adopt measures, some of which are dangerous to their health,
to prevent them becoming increasingly fat.

Mos of patients are women. They divided their days into ‘good days’ when they had no
compulsion to binge-eat, and ‘bad days’ when they found the need to binge-eat irresistible.
They are also aware that anxiety, boredom, stress, or unhappiness could precipitate an
episode of binge-eating.
Bulimia nervosa patients know that they have an eatind disorder. They are fascinated by food
and by cook-books an read magazine articles about food and cooking. They enjoy discussing
food and diets, and often use eating as a way of escaping from the unpleasant stresses of life,
to the extent that they have an all-cosuming desire to eat. But they are aware that binge-eating
is quite distinct from overeacting. Between binges they may diet rigorously, and may try to
resist the urge to binge-eat, rather as an alcoholic tries to resist the urge to drink. This analogy
may be more exact than is obvious at first sight, as at least 20 per cent of bulimia patients
abuse alcohol or drugs.

Bibliografie/webografie:

https://www.healthline.com/health/eating-disorders/anorexia-vs-bulimia#signs-and-
symptoms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_disorder

https://books.google.ro/books?
hl=ro&lr=&id=92gUFK0GIiMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=anorexia+eating+disorder+fac
ts&ots=XW57O50rzV&sig=tUSzYBrNgPm7GieRRkEMqylNyX0&redir_esc=y#v=onep
age&q=anorexia%20eating%20disorder%20facts&f=false

https://books.google.ro/books?
hl=ro&lr=&id=2aX3oJiD4FoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=anorexia+eating+disorder+facts
&ots=gYN6bDL0mR&sig=xhZbN4DQH3J8ru7V4mlrKGlqVXg&redir_esc=y#v=onepa
ge&q=anorexia%20eating%20disorder%20facts&f=false