Feeding and eating disorder (Anorexia Nervosa)

Feeding and eating disorder (Anorexia Nervosa)

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INTRODUCTION

Anorexia nervosa is a type of psychological feeding and eating disorder that mostly develops during adolescence and commonly occurs in women compared to men. The categories of people with this disorder view themselves as overweight, and they keep monitoring their weights regularly. They tend to evade themselves from eating some species of food and also restrict their calories. It is a life-threatening feeding and eating disorder. The group of people ailing from anorexia nervosa has a deficient body relative to their body type and height. Body mass index is the tool used to assess the person suffering from an eating disorder. More to those observations like exercise, patterns of eating and personality traits can also give indications of the disease. Due to the fear of gaining excessive weight, the individuals have a distorted body like images (Bryant, 2019). It can also refer to self-starvation or appetite loss. The disorder can get grouped into the following categories:

1. Purge Anorexia Nervosa. The class of the group of people struggling with this type will receive purse/vomit automatically after taking a meal. It is a result of the fear of gaining weight. This negative psychological setups of the victims force the victims to get weakened because the stomach is not able to retain the food that can get digested to give energy.
2. Restrictive Anorexia Nervosa. This category of people under this type of eating disorder is called a self-disciplined group. They avoid taking some quantities of food and calories. Additionally, they avoid high sugary foods and fats. Afterward results in self-starvation because they are not able to make enough calories that can help maintain healthy weights. The two types of the disorder have similar symptoms that are abnormalities in eating styles and irrational fear of gaining weight (Hay, 2019).

DISCUSSIONS

Signs and symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa

1. Physical

• the feeling of coldness even if the weather is sunny.
• Menstrual irregularities like menstruating during hormonal contraceptives, irregular periods, and amenorrhea occurs.
• Dental complications such as reduced tooth sensitivity and wearing off of enamel and cavities occur.
• Poor wound healing due to lack of enough immunity to fight as a result of poor eating habits also occurs.
• Impairment of immune systems.
• Difficulties in the concentrations of any activities and
• Swelling of the areas around the salivary glands occurs.
• Sleep problem escalations.

1. Behavioral and emotional

• Development of food rituals like excessive chewing of food, food arrangements while on the plate, and an abnormal order of eating the food.
• Regular complaints on excessive energy, severe problems, and continued abdominal pains and constipation.
• Cooking food for others and failing to involve yourself in eating.
• Isolation from friends and their activities.
• Developing healthy needs to do self-control of the body.
• Development of intense fear on weight gains even if one is underweight.
• Consistence excuses during mealtimes to avoid being served.
• Making continued excuses comments about becoming fat also if one is skinny.
• Dressing in a manner to hide the weight loss.
• Denying being hungry whenever food talks begin.

Diagnostic criteria for Anorexia Nervosa

1. Restriction of the food intake resulting in weight loss and weight gain failure. It negatively impacts the weight of the body below the expectations of the human age, height, and sex. The example can be where one cooks food and serve the others and fails to help himself or herself. Another example is the denying of being hungry during meal times, thereby evading the meals.
2. Fear of becoming fat and gaining enormous body weights. It leads to immunity deteriorations leading to body complications. An example of this is the failure to take a meal when in public or under private areas. Another example is giving excuses whenever food gets served.
3. Developments of the distorted views of oneself together with their conditions. An example of this includes the victim thinking that he or she is overweight when it is not. Considering that taking individual meal types and quantities can result in weight gains.

(F50.01) purging type

Engagements in binge eating or purging behavior. They are; eating until one is uncomfortably full, eating much more quickly than normality, feeling guilty of disgust with oneself, eating alone because of feeling embarrassed and shame. Treatments like having enough sleep, the start of the exercise to boost moods and anxiety symptoms, selections of healthy foods that will help avert anger, look for someone to talk to to get help in the menu that are vital for your body. Other mechanisms include medications and therapy mechanism can be of help (Gomez, 2018).

(F50.02) restrictive type

Low body weights. It is due to the following; induced vomiting by an individual, isolation from the people during the mealtimes, consumptions of the unlimited amount of calories in the diet, denying being hungry whenever one is requested or asked to take a meal, cooking food for the others and avoiding to take them. Treatments; getting nutritional guidance and counseling from the clinical officers and family group psychotherapy especially for under age in order to know the type of diet and amount to give them.

In partial remission

After the partial analyses of the low body weights, criteria A, there are continued restrictions on food consumption due to the fear of getting overweight. Criteria B, fear of increasing the pressure that forces the individuals to not to take essential diets. Another approach is failing to eat after preparing the meal that you are serving the others, and you fail to help yourself. Criteria c, the individual develops negative assumptions like being overweight and also failing to take meals while other times avoid the meals through giving reasons.

In full remission

In this lab test like urinalysis, protein check, and kidney performance can be done. X-ray to measure the internal deteriorations like bone fractures and other complications. Condition of the nails can also be applied. All three criteria are involved in the full remission diagnosis because the effect of the poor feeding and eating habits will yield almost similar complications, especially on the long run.

Severity of Anorexia Nervosa

The disorder has different magnitude of strains depending on the age and also gender of the person having the disorder. Since most of the causes are driven the individual personality, it can then be regulated on the basis of the individual realization of the extreme effects. For very kinds it will be very rare to observe such cases because most of the diets are dependent on the parents who are caring for them (Phillipou, 2018). The disorder is therefore evaluated based on the BMI that is body mass index. For moderate condition the body mass is greater the 17. For the moderates’ effects, the BMI is in between 16 to 16.99. For the severe impacts the body mass index is between 15 to 15.99. Lastly for the extreme cases the BMI is less than 17. Therefore the condition of the disorder toward an individual will vary depending on the mass index. For example continued failure to take meals or omissions with an aim of reducing your body weights can lead to severe and extreme conditions. Thereby it is advisable to regulate the food intake even though one is under weights control.

Under nutrition in adolescents and the children can come up with different impact depending on the immune system of the person. For the children it can results to growth retardations and height losses. Since children are at the progressive growth, they are then entitled to continuous feeding patterns in order to ensure that they enough energy that is meant for development from one stage to another. Selection of the diet to growing kids should be prohibited because they require enough food to develop their immunity. At young age the immunity response to diseases is very weak and therefore subjecting the underage to the food choices can lead to severe complications not only to the feeding and eating disorder but also to other kinds of illness (Gomez, 2018). For those under adolescent stages, it is thereby advisable to take as enough meals as possible because this is the stage that the body is very active. Failure to do so can lead to puberty complications and other times it can fail to occur. Stunted growth can also emanate from the continued exposure to diet restrictions.

For the women who are past the puberty stage, the feeding and eating disorder can cease the flow of menstrual cycle. Weight losses can also be accompanied therefore lacking enough support for essential body functionalities. In an extreme conditions the person can also lead to disabled births and also complications at the same time. Since the body is like and industry, it is thereby essential to maintain normal diet in order to ensure that there is sufficient energy to undertake normal body functionalities. If therefore a need arises to regulate the body weights, it is advisable to seek the medical interventions to know exactly what is needed to be done (Hoek, 2017).

Diagnostic exam and tests for Anorexia Nervosa

Doctor undertake several examinations and tests to help narrow down to the diagnosis. This can also be facilitated by engaging the patient or the victim that by question on previous feeding and eating formats. Continued conversion between the two will speed the time the doctor arrives at the conclusion. Since this disorder mostly occurs as a results of the individual choice, it is therefore requires professional approach in order to read the psychology of the victim (Phillipou, 2018).

Physical exams: In this evaluations the clinical officer can undertake several examinations. Some of this include height and weight measuring, checking on the vital signs like heart rate, blood pressure, and also temperatures. Other includes checking the conditions of the nails and skin, keen listening of the lungs and hearts and last abdominal conditions examinations.

Lab tests: These includes urinalysis tests, performing specialized tests in order to check proteins and electrolytes, thyroids functions together with kidney and liver performances.

Psychological tests: For example asking the patient or the victim about the thoughts, feelings and eating moods. More to that the therapist can ask the person to fill a psychological self-assessment questionnaires.

Other tests and examinations: E.g. X-rays to measure the bone density, bones dislocations, or even the evaluation of pneumonia and heart complications. For heart irregularities, electrocardiograms are applied, and lastly, tests to determine the amount of energy one is using is done in order to choose the type of the nutrition ton subject the person.

From the world statistic, the disorder is thought to affect one in every 200 American women. The analyses showed that men were less affected compared to women. From young ages, the disorder is considered complex due to the occurrence in varied styles and formats. Some individuals show different signs and symptoms, and others, it is very hard to display any designs of the same. Most of the guys hide the illness because mostly it is a choice illness, and disclosing it may tamper with the objective. Continued secrecy of the illness can lead to severe mental health-related complications, and also one can develop weak immunity response, thereby becoming vulnerable to other types of diseases (Hay, 2019).

Causes of the Anorexia Nervosa are always not clearer during clinical assessments. The condition is normally treated in a manner that meets the individual’s needs. Those who are suffering from this disorder are advised to observe the food diaries in order to become extra aware of what triggers the condition. Treatment patterns can be derived from nutritional guidance and counseling, medical care and monitoring, medication dosages, and psychotherapy approaches. Therapy prescription can either be a direct one on one or in other areas, family groups’ method (Bryant, 2019). For example, cognitive behavioral therapy can help such individuals to recognize their thinking patterns or styles.

Family-based therapy is mostly offered to the parents to help them take responsibility for feeding their developing children who may be suffering from the disorder.

Mostly feeding and eating disorders are accompanied by other illnesses such as depressions and anxiety. I such circumstances, medications can be offered to alleviates the symptoms of one condition to improve the wellbeing of the person. Anorexia Nervosa can be treated with medications like antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and antidepressants. For the treatment of depression, serotonin reuptake inhibitors are used, and for treat anxiety, olanzapine is used. The sooner the help is sought, the better for those with long term incubation of Anorexia Nervosa.

CONCLUSION

From the above knowledge on Anorexia Nervosa, we can, therefore, conclude that the option of the bodyweight loss should be advised at the hospital level to avoid future complications. Those that select the option at a personal level need to first get the medical guidance and counseling on the same in order to do it the right way. For other people who had practiced the same without medical consultations, it is thereby good to monitor some of the other illnesses that are developed as a result of that. This other illness is, therefore, very aggressive, and failure to manage them on time can lead to the worse. Being overweight and underweight can also depend on many other factors apart from feeding and eating habit (Hoek, 2017). One of these being the day to day physical exercise. One need to do day to day exercise in order to regulate the size of the body rather than dwelling on the meal as a source of the solution. Lastly, to ensure that the immunity and wellbeing of oneself are on continuous improvements, then meals will be the first options.

References

Gómez, C. C., Palma, S. M., Miján-de-la-Torre, A., Rodríguez, P. O., Matía, P. M., Loria, V. K., … & Castro, M. A. (2018). Consensus document about the nutritional evaluation and management of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and others. Nutrition hospitalaria, 35(Spec No1), 1-9.

Hoek, H. W. (2017). Epidemiology of eating disorders. Eating Disorders and Obesity: A Comprehensive Handbook, 237.

Bryant-Waugh, R. (2019). Feeding and eating disorders in children. Psychiatric Clinics, 42(1), 157-167.

Phillipou, A., Castle, D. J., & Rossell, S. L. (2018). Anorexia nervosa: Eating disorder or body image disorder?.

Hay, P. (2019). Hidden eating disorders and the treatment gap. Jornal Brasileiro de Psiquiatria, 68(4), 181-182.