Adolescent Eating Disorders (DONE) Flashcards
(11 cards)
What is body image?
The subjective mental picture of the body.
What is an Eating Disorder? When do they emerge? What are the three main types?
- Altering your body image through extreme dietary change
- Emerges at the adolescent phase but can persist throughout adulthood
Three main types:
- Anorexia Nervosa
- Bulimia Nervosa
- Binge-eating Disorder
Anorexia Nervosa: Characterization
- Characterized by self-induced starvation resulting in abnormally low body weight due to disordered perception of body weight
- Clinical diagnosis is based on BMI; BMI needs to be <17
- Individuals obsess about weight and food intake
- Affects women and men, but has a higher incidence in women (particularly during the adolescent phase due to pubertal weight gain)
- To prevent weight gain, individuals will:
(1) Restrict food consumption
(2) Misuse diuretics and laxatives
(3) Exercise excessively - There is a continual fear of gaining weight, no matter the amount of weight loss.
- Thinness correlates with self-worth
Anorexia Nervosa: Behavioral Attributes and At Risk Groups
Behavioral Attributes
- Refusal to eat in public
- Covering up body with layers of clothing
- Preoccupation with food often times cooking elaborate meals for others but not eating
- Denial of hunger, making excuses not to eat
At Risk Groups:
- Adolescent girls, professions that value “thinness” as a reflection of professional self-worth like modeling, dancing, or acting
Anorexia- Stages of Starvation
- Depletion of glycogen storage to ensure that the brain has enough glucose for function
- Hypoglycemia will trigger a starvation response when you run out of glucose. Tissues in the body stop metabolizing glucose and start using up all the fat stores preserving glucose for the brain.
- Brain starts running out of glucose so the liver starts metabolizing fats into ketone bodies to supply to the brain.
- The brain can survive on ketone bodies for a while but still needs 40 grams of glucose per day.
- Starts to break down protein. Uses “non-essential” protein first and catabolizes the skeletal muscle.
- You run out of fat stores. Muscle catabolism intensifies
- Starts catabolizing “essential muscle” which are organs
- Death. Organ failure and/or dehydration
Anorexia: Consequences
- Abnormal blood counts
- Fatigue, dizziness, fainting
- Arrhythmia
- Amenorrhea
- Anemia
- Bone loss
- Muscle loss
Anorexia: Treatment
- Diagnosis
- What type of Disorder?
- Who is on the Team?
- What is the treatment?
- Diagnosis: BMI <17
- Mental disorder, not a nutrition one
- Team Based Approach:
(1) Mental Health Professional
(2) Physician
(3) Dietitian - Slowly start reincorporating foods with extreme care to avoid re-feeding syndrome
*Metabolic disturbance that occurs due to the sudden reintroduction of food. - Results in a dramatic shift of the body’s electrolytes which causes cardiac arrest.
Bulimia Nervosa: Characterization & Causes
- Characterized by binge eating followed by depression and guilt leading to self-induced purging as a result of being obsessive about body weight
- Binging: repeated episodes of eating abnormally large amounts of food in one setting
- Purging: Forcing yourself to vomit, misuse of laxatives, engaging in chronic excercise regiments
- Most people who are bulimic are at a normal weight
- Causes: Environmental, genetic, psychosocial
Bulimia Nervosa: Consequences
- Repeated purging continually floods the mouth with gastric content.
- Erodes in the enamel in the teeth -> yellowing and rapid tooth decay
- Gastric reflux, esophageal ulcers, cancers, mouth sores
- Routine purging causes tremendous stress on the body
- Arrhythmia
- Heart Palpitations
Binge Eating Disorder
Causes:
(1) Psychosocial
- Triggered by stress, lack of confidence or self-worth
- Emoitonal instability
(2) Genetics
- Mutations that affect satiety or reposne to hunger cues
Bulimia Nervosa: Treatment
Team Based Approach:
(1) Mental Health Professional
(2) Physician
(3) Dietitian
Goals and Methods:
- Engage in group therapy
- Treatments of medical comorbidities
- Restoration of body weight to a normal level
- Family therapy to improve communication and family function
- Individualized psychotherapy to improve social well- being and emotional
- Nutrition education and counseling to normalize food-related thoughts
