Adolescent Eating Disorders



Adolescent Eating Disorders

Introduction

The eating disorder in adolescents are illnesses that are caused by the unbalancing or disturbances of daily diets when they intake very little food or overeat. In adolescents eating disorders prevalence is associated with the severe distress and inadequate diet every day. The most common disorders in adolescents men and women includes the binge-eating, the bulimia nervosa, and anorexia nervosa. In fact the number of adolescents that are significantly affected by these eating disorders is unknown. The eating disorders can be medically treated. The eating disorders can be the cause of other illnesses as well, for example, anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse. Some of the consequences arise from the eating disorders can be life-threatening if the patient is not able to receive the appropriate treatment. The people suffering from the disorders of anorexia nervosa are more likely to die than the adolescents of the general population.

Anorexia Nervosa and its causes

Anorexia nervosa is the eating disorder that prevails in adolescents and comprises of the following characteristics

The emaciation or severe thinness

A persistent detection and maintenance of thinness and disorder to normalize the weight or health condition

Extreme fear to gain weight

The body image is distorted; the patient suffers from an extreme perceptions or consciousness about their body shape and weight. In other words denial against the significance of low weight

Menstruation imbalances in women

Severely restricted diet and eating routine.

Many adolescents with anorexia consider themselves as underweight or overweight due to the obsessions of food, weight, and eating, even when these people clearly have the proper weight. The adolescents with anorexia usually keep on weighting themselves, careful about the portion food they intake as they eat only little quantities of the certain food items. Some adolescents who are subjected to anorexia can also suffer by the binge-eating which follows the excessive exercise, misuse of laxatives, diuretics, enemas, self-induced vomiting, and extreme dieting. Some adolescents having anorexia can easily recover through treatment just after the single episode while others may not get well, instead have relapses. Whereas in some case the severe health of these people can be long lasting and more chronic when their strength turns down as they battle against the illness. The symptoms such as dry skin, brittle nails and hairs, hair growth all over the body, brain damage, severe constipation, slowed pulse and breathing, failure of multiple organs, infertility, Lethargy, sluggishness, damage to heart, low BP, dropping of the internal temperature of the body, mild Anemia, tired feelings, Osteopenia or Osteoporosis may develop in some time (Wonderlich et al., 2005; APA, 2005)

Bulimia nervosa and its causes

Bulimia is the eating disorder comprises of the frequent and recurrent of eating in which the person intakes a larger food quantity than usual. The person has no control over these episodes or obsession to overeat. The severe bulimia patient can suffer from binge-eating in which he follows the behavior of overeating compensation for example, fasting, forced vomiting, excessive exercise, excessive use of diuretic or laxatives, and the combination of the ...