Eating Disorders Flashcards
What are the key features of anorexia nervosa?
- extremely underweight for height and age
- restriction of calorie intake
- fear of weight gain
- begins with dieting
What are the two anorexia subtypes?
- restricting
- binge eat purge
Describe comorbidity for anorexia
- 70% depressed at some point
- higher than ave rates of substance abuse and OCD
List three ways that body image is disturbed
- by specific body parts
- denial of thinness
- perceptual disturbance
List some physical starvation effects
- hypothermia
- bradycardia (reduced heart rate)
- hypotension
- oedema
- lanugo (neonatal like hair)
- slowed metabolism
- amenorrhea (no period)
- delayed gastric emptying
- hair loss
Briefly describe the DSM criteria for anorexia
- restriction of energy leading to low body weight for age gender etc
- intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat
- disturbance in body perception
- restricting type or binge purge type
How do bulimia and binge eating disorder differ?
Binge eaters do not do compensatory behaviours like vomiting, diuretics, laxatives
What stage of life is anorexia likely to occur and why?
Adolescence, because they want to feel independent and in control of something
What are some mood associations with anorexia?
- depressed mood
- social withdrawal
- insomnia
- OCD features
What are some psychological starvation effects of anorexia?
- food preoccupation
- excessive water intake
- obsessional behaviours
- lowered concentration
- indecision
- sleep disturbance
What are the main causes of eating disorders
- dieting
- family influence
- biological
- psychological
- biopsychosocial
- sociocultural
- personality
Dieting
- in adolescence leads to 8x greater disorder risk
- adolescents internalise and do what their friends do
- become obsessed with food due to restricted intake
Family influence
- parents with distorted food perception
- high achieving families
- concerned with external appearances
- motivated to maintain harmony
- poor communication
- individual serves to deflect information away from underlying family conflict
Biological factors
- relatives 4-5x times more likely
- low levels of sertonergic activity in eating disorders
- disturbance in hypothalamic functioning
- larger ventricles in anorexia patients due to brain shrinkage and less white matter
Psychological factors
- low sense of control and self esteem
- perfectionistic
- distorted body image
- preoccupation with food
- mood intolerance
