Bulimia
Sharon is a high school girl like many others. With encouragement from her parents, she studies hard, is on the honor role, the swim team, honor club and even finds time to volunteer in the community. Yet, on a Friday night, while her parents are out at a movie (her boyfriend, Todd, cancelled on her) she eats enough food for five people then makes herself throw up. This is not just pigging out. It's symptomatic of an increasingly widespread eating disorder known as bulimia or the binge purge syndrome and it's more prevalent than most realize. Bulimia, like the better known eating disorder anorexia nervosa, has its own unique characteristics, causes and effects that should be recognized and addressed by society. First, the characteristics of bulimia involve bingeing on large quantities of junk food, followed by compensation by means of vomiting, laxatives or fasting. "The binge eating and compensatory behaviors must occur at least twice a week for 3 months. (APA, 1994)" (Morris, p. 389) This pattern is usually accompanied by an awareness that the eating pattern is abnormal, fear of not being able to stop voluntarily and self-depreciating thoughts. The victims of this disease are almost exclusively women between the ages of 16
A psychological trait of someone with bulimia usually includes a form of anxiety disorder called the obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the case of bulimia the person "feels personally ineffective and depends on others (Phelps & Bajorek, 1991). Feelings of vulnerability and helplessness apparently dispose people to adopt inappropriate ways of controlling the world around them." (Morris, page 390) Apart from societal and physical contributors, and most importantly, bulimia has been positively attributed to various psychological and emotional factors. It is almost always associated with a "traumatic experience, most commonly the loss or separation of a close friend or family member." (Claude-Pierre, p. 110) For example, "nearly every one of the women treated at Cornell University's mental health clinic pointed to a real or imagined male rejection as the event that triggered the first big diet and, subsequently the first binge." (Fairburn & Wilson, Moving from characteristics to causes, researchers have found that bulimia can be caused by a variety of social, physical and psychological factors. First, society's preoccupation with external appearance has lead many women into a world of confusion and distorted values. One piece of propaganda the media overemphasizes is die
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Approximate Word count = 862
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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