Childhood Sexual Abuse & Eating Disorders

Clearly, there is a need to fully understand factors that produce eating disorders if therapeutic efforts to remediate the condition are to be successful. The study proposed here is designed to provide new insight into the connection between eating disorders and childhood sexual abuse as part of the effort to attain a more complete phenomena of the etiology of eating disorders.

It should be noted that because of the connection of eating disorders with childhood sexual abuse, the study is not only important because it will provide more information about eating disorders but it should also be of assistance to women who have suffered some form of childhood sexual abuse. Like eating disorders, sexual abuse is a pervasive, complex societal problem estimated to have been experienced by 30%46% of American females (Sue, Sue & Sue, 1994).

Moreover, the consequences of childhood sexual abuse are grave. In this regard, O'Shea (1993) reports that:

The psychosocial consequences are numerous, often severe, and can result in death. They include: anxiety, BPD

. . .
jects' tendencies to dissociate will be operationally defined as their scores on the Welsh Repression or R Scale (Welsh, 1956) which is a special MMPI scale that assesses the tendency to deal with a problem via avoidance through repression or suppression processes. At low levels, the tendency is characterized by a general unsightfulness while at high levels the tendency is associated with complete absence of memory or identity that characterizes a dissociative disorder. Eating Disorders: Eating disorders refer to disturbances in eating behavior (Sue, Sue & Sue, 1994). As used in this study, the term is restricted to two types of disturbances: (1) anorexia nervosa or self-starvation (DSM-IV, 1994); and (2) bulimia in which a person regularly (at least twice a week) goes on huge eating binges (consuming up to 5,000 calories in a single sitting, nearly always in secret) and then purges by self-induced vomiting, strict dieting or fasting, vigorous exercise or use of laxatives or diuretics (DSM-IV, 1994). Operationally, this term will be defined on the basis of a standing diagnosis of either anorexia nervous or bulimia given to the subject at the eating disorder clinic from which eating disorder subjects will be drawn. Methodology
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3772
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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