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Female Self-Image & Eating Disorders

r of gaining weight or becoming obese, as well as a distorted body image, leading to an excessive weight loss from restricting food intake and excessive exercise. Anorexia nervosa is not associated with any preexisting physical illness. A number of diseases may produce rapid and profound weight loss, but with such organic underpinnings of disease the patient fights the weight loss. In anorexia nervosa, the patient fights against everything that could prevent weight loss.

Anorexia (as it is most often referred to) is found chiefly in adolescents, especially young women. Between 5 and 18 percent of known anorexia nervosa victims die of starvation. At a less severe level, the condition may also lead to abnormalities in the menstrual cycle and increased susceptibility to infection.

No generally recognized therapy for anorexia nervosa exists. It is often associated with depression and low self-esteem, and patients may benefit from treatment with antidepressant drugs. Psychotherapy, including family therapy, often helps, and about half of the cases resolve themselves without relapses. The behavioral problem may lead to actual chemical disorders in the body, however, that aggravate the condition Fisher et. al. 1995, p. 421).

Because many persons with anorexia nervosa never seek medical treatment, the exact prevalence of the condition is unknown. Studies indicate that it may develop in as many as 1 percent of the young women in the United States (Fisher et. al. 1995, p. 421).

People with anorexia may also exhibit the practice, known as bulimia, of ingesting large quantities of food and then voiding it through self-induced vomiting in order to remain thin. Bulimia (which may also exist independently of anorexia and is thus the second major form of eating disorder examined in this paper) is an eating disorder in which persistent overconcern with body weight and shape leads to repeated episodes of bingeing (consuming large amounts of f...

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