The causes of the eating disorders are multi-factorial. The factors can be hereditary, environmental or individual related. One of the principal causes of eating disorder is the experience of emotional or physical abuse in childhood. Childhood sexual abuse is highly common, and it affects men and women equally. A history of such abuse can give rise to many psychological and behavioral characteristics like depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and eating disorders of obesity and bulimia (Committee on Adolescence, 2003).
The aim of this paper is to analyze the personality of Precious Jones as a child grown with neglect and incest. The paper also aims to explore the relationship between abused children and the different disorders. These disorders can be of any form like eating disorders or mental disorders. The psychological disorders due to post trauma stress are also studied in this paper.
Case
The case is taken from a movie released in 2009. Precious Jones is a sixteen-year-old girl. She suffered from many hardships in her early and young life. She was brought up in a poor family. She was abused by her mother and raped by her father. She felt illiterate, fat, unloved and neglected from early childhood. Precious suffered from emotional and physical abuse since early childhood.
Precious developed various symptoms showing she is a neglected child. She started to show sudden changes in her behavior at school. Her performance at school was not satisfactory at all. Precious was highly influenced by her school teacher Miss Blu Rain. Precious feels that she can have a bright future if she learns to read and write. She also showed learning problems which are increasing as time passes. Precious often avoids her friends and likes to stay alone. Her friends discussed among each other that Precious was unable to have any attention of her parents. She never received any physical and medical help regarding the problems she is facing. She told Miss Blu Rain that her parents do not pay any attention to her. She is becoming overly complaint, passive and withdrawn with time. The major symptom of her detachment from her parents is that she usually comes to school early and stays up late as she does not want to go home.
Precious is lacking any adult supervision. Precious started to fantasize the escape from the grips of her abusive mother. She considered her mother as the only support, but her mother was too busy in living her personal life and showed no interest towards Precious. In the movie, Harlem was presented as an overweight, illiterate, African American teenager who is a victim of incest. The movie shows the perseverance and survival. It also surfaces the connection between abuse and eating problems.
Discussion
Child Abuse in USA
The concern regarding child abuse in USA is growing as in every ten seconds; a case of child abuse is reported. The abuse is reported highest in children under the age of 1 which is 20.6 per 1,000. Abuse results in death of five children ...
