One woman's experience with anorexia and early intervention

¶ … Participant's Experience: A Qualitative Research Reflecting How to Prevent Eating Disorders in Order to Support Current Patients

This article aims to present a qualitative research of one woman's experience of anorexia, a kind of eating disorder, using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The details of the women's personal experience of anorexia supposed to be unique, but the general outline is as common as on other patients. The delay of correct medical and mental treatment seems to miss the best time for complete recovery. Supports from society are indispensable assistance, especially from her family. Anorexia is a common illness which highly happened around female, and it is always hidden by patients toward their family, doctors. Anticipating the psychological therapy and consult can help to minimize trauma and maximize recovery. Talking and intervention in early stage of anorexia may assist the way of the woman lower potential to such a serious situation.

Introduction

Currently aesthetic taste of common society is that no matter woman or man, everyone should be as slim as possible. Models on the fashion show are always thinner than average standard, in another words, most of the people are not as thin as pretty models. People want to lose weight to be more attractive, and some of them choose a wrong method - starvation. In view of a healthy lifestyle, weight control is essential, but it should be based on scientific meal plan and fitness plan (ref). People who want to stop eating for losing weight is dangerous, as they may suffer from anorexia.

The anorexia is a kind of serious physical and psychology disease, and it becomes more and more common in modern society because of the popular culture of excellent body shape. As patients are always hiding their symptoms and avoid talking about this disease, the masses of people are not deeply understand how dangerous of the diseases, especially among youth groups (ref). The most popular pathogenesis is starving for losing weight, so the most effective preventive action is reducing this trend of starvation. Currently, lots of countries have legislation action for avoiding over-slim models (ref), which is an extraordinary action for preventing anorexia. It has decreased the growth rate of new patients of anorexia, but it is not enough.

The personal experience of current patients should be used to persuade potential patients to stop trying starving. In the smoking ban actions, audience could get the feeling of fear from images of organs of smoking people, such as aged skin and damaged lung. As description above, the images of a slim anorexia patient or starvation people may lead to adverse effect, but the personal experience talked by patients may help people to notice the seriousness of anorexia. Except the fear appeal functions, the experience of anorexia has another influence on persuading patients who are confused to accept correct treatment and deal interpersonal relationships. People are feeling shame to talk about their anorexia disease, and disgust others talk on their eating behavior.

In the other hand, the personal view of the anorexia patients is crucial for their consultants and medicine. Like patients of some other chronic diseases, anorexia patients always face to anxiety, angry, social problems or other psychology symptoms. They always feel shame to face and talk about this disease. For helping them recover social relationships, we need to get deep into the patient's world to know what he/she is thinking about herself/himself, the disease and social relations with other people.

Literature Review

In the United States alone, eating disorders are projected to happen around ten times as often in women as in men, with the extreme risk being in teenage girls and young woman (Zimbardo, 2009). Eating disorders involve things like self-critical, negative thoughts that are negative and about body weight and the foods that they eat, and also eating habits that disturb normal body roles and day-to-day actions (Kids Health, 1995-2010, sec. 1). The most public recognized eating illness is anorexia nervosa. According to a movie clip from NOVA Online (2000. PBS.org), about 22% of the inhabitants in the United States have died of anorexia.

Historical background

During the year of 1874, William Gull, who was an English physician, printed an article on an illness he called anorexia nervosa. In his story, Gull had made a description of the cases of two women with who happened to have been extreme weight loss issues and included a thorough analysis of his understanding of anorexia nervosa. Because of Gull's first stages in studying this eating disorder, anorexia nervosa turned out to become a tremendously debated, yet prevalent area of worry in the medical area (Yancey, 2008).

Since anorexia nervosa has developed such a controversial subject, the American Psychiatric Association has established an overall diagnostic standards: "Denial to uphold body weight over a negligible usual weight for age and height, penetrating fear of putting on the weight or just turning into a person that is overweight becoming fat, trouble in the way in which a person's body weight, size, or shape are practiced, and deficiency of at least three uninterrupted menstrual cycles" (Holiday, 2005).

Until 1900s, a woman's perfect body shape was supposed to be that which was sort of voluptuous and curvy. Throughout the Victorian era, the breasts and buttocks had become areas of the body that were more highlighted. As of the 1900s to 1960s, a woman that carried a much slim figure seemed to be what was more popular, and women began to count their calorie intake, which was endorsed by the model Twiggy. Currently, the perfect body shape remains to stress slenderness, but with breasts that are large. Throughout each of these eras in history, anorexia nervosa appeared mostly in females throughout their adolescent to young adult years. Scholars thought that these women were mostly victims of this disorder since they had such a poor self-esteem. Existing research specifies that the amount of men identified or showing indications of anorexia nervosa is growing, yet women are still the majority.

Ever since the nineteenth century to the current day, researchers that have been studying anorexia nervosa have discovered and exposed numerous reasons for this dangerous inclination to be thin. The causes have undoubtedly been transforming itself over the years because of new suggestions and detections, different eras in history, and contradictory clarifications over a range of disciplines. Scientists are starting to discuss a genetic tendency, psychiatry is inspecting the part of perfectionism in patients that are anorexic, sociology is bearing in mind the association among mothers and anorexia, and communications are deliberating the effect of television on those predisposed to anorexia.

One of the most discussed themes in society, particularly relating to anorexia nervosa, has something to do with the nature vs. nurture dispute. This subject queries the parts of genetics and the setting in examining conduct. Most academics in the science discipline, particularly genetics, understand a person's conduct grounded on natural phenomena. In a specific systematic education on the theme of genetics, Michael Strober, Wendy Morrell, Jane Burroughs, Barbara Salkin, and Carrie Jacobs associated "first and second-degree relations of anorexia nervosa and non-anorexic psychiatrically ill control probands" (239).

Within this contrast, Strober and his colleague scholars all had the belief that their scientific experiment would propose that the cause of anorexia is hereditarily predisposed. Their approach had something to do with direct interviews with all "first-degree and available second-degree relatives of probands" on any analysis of eating illnesses and other questions that are relating to behaviors that are specific (Strober, 2009). The scholars in this experiment made the choice to ask all relatives questions that were pertaining to their eating behaviors, perfect body shape, "dietary constraint," personality traits that were involving control, exercise rites, and "patterns of losing weight and then gaining it back again" (Strober, 2009). The account of all probands and their families were also encompassed in the analysis.

What is anorexia nervosa?

People that are dealing with anorexia nervosa have an intense fear of putting on the pounds and a twisted point-of-view of what they think that their body size and shape should look like. This distress can turn into a mania, in which the person seriously starts to believe that they actually need to get to a body weight that is low, either by starving themselves or sharing in extreme exercise. It is said that when a person weighs less than 85% of the desirable weight and still doubts about being fat, the probable analysis is anorexia nervosa (Zimbardo, 2009, p. 409). This illness is supposed to be one of the lethal psychiatric disorders.

What are the signs and indications of anorexia nervosa?

People that are dealing with anorexia nervosa frequently hide their circumstances but as the disorder developments, the signs and indications become clearer and too problematic to repudiate. The eating and food conduct symptoms and signs of anorexia nervosa comprise dieting in spite of being thin and fixation with calories, the fat grams on the labels, and nutrition, pretending to eat or make up some lies regarding eating, obsession with food, and odd or private food rites (Healthguide, 2001-2010, sec. 2). The form and body image signs and symptoms of anorexia nervosa comprise weight loss that is unquestionably dramatic (no medical reason), feeling fat, in spite of being underweight, fixation on body image, severely dangerous of appearance, and refute the fact of them being way too thin (Healthguide, 2001-2010, sec. 2).

Psychoanalytic and developmental theories

The rise of selfhood has been labeled as a central concentration of psychoanalytic and developmental psychology (Strober, 1991). Psychoanalytic theories that are addressing the expansion of self in eating disorder have strained chiefly on self-psychological perceptions, which planned with the effort of Kohut (1971, 1977). Psychoanalytic phase theories of identity development (e.g. Erikson, 1959, 1980; cited in Stevens, 1983) have also been used to a perception of eating disorder, and literature developing from these two methods is measured in the following table which displays how a person that is suffering from the disorder feels about themselves

What are the effects of anorexia nervosa?

Anorexia has an emotional impact on the whole body. When the body is not getting the energy it requests to purpose normally, it goes into a mode of starvation. The body decelerates down and then turns to itself to gather the nutrients it needs, meaning the body starts to devour itself and the medical difficulties heap up (Healthguide, 2001-2010, sec. 2). Anorexics can suffer from not having their menstrual periods, anemia, little body fluids, withered bones, loss of mineral, changes in brain chemistry, unbalanced heartbeat, failure of the kidney, failure of the heart, the growth of osteoporosis, and in the end death (Kids Health. 1995-2010).

How can anorexia nervosa be treated?

Treatment for this disease stresses significantly on the physical and psychological features of the issue. Rendering to the National Institute of Mental Health (12 June 2009. Health Topic sec), treating anorexia comprises of three constituents: reinstating the individual to a health weight; handling the psychological matters that are related to the eating disorder; and plummeting or removing performances or opinions that lead to disorderly eating, and thwarting deterioration or relapse. The medical treatment for anorexia sometimes can involve hospitalization. Therapy is another constituent in treating anorexia. Some methods of therapy comprise of behavior therapy, family therapy nutritional counseling, cognitive therapy, and group rehabilitation (Heathguide, 2001-2010, sec 2.).

Method

Aim at understanding view of anorexia patients, the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) should be used in. IPA roots in health psychology (Smith et al. 1995, 1997, 1999) and the social cognition paradigm (Fiske & Taylor, 1991).

Qualitative Research

The worth of a qualitative study in eating disorders which has been emphasized by Hepworth (Colton & Pistrang, 2004), who labeled the deficiency of such exploration at the time as a flaw in evolving theory and clinical exercise?. Since this time, a rising amount of qualitative studies of eating disorder have been explored (Mulveen & Hepworth, 2006). Nevertheless, these continue comparatively insufficient in number compared to the capacity of quantitative studies. Nevonen and Broberg (2000) have made the argument that though quantitative research has allowed an abundant deal of development, it also has limitations. For instance, since such exploration often utilizes organized reporting methods, contributors can only remark upon what they are questioned to respond to, and this may create a disjointed picture?

In this research, the transcript is from the HealthyPlace.com, which is an online community of mental health in America. It is an online conference transcript, and the guest is Stacy Evrard who is a current anorexia patients for 20 years since her was 16.

The online transcription has been transcribed