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Emily Garza

Professor Judith R. McCann

ENGL 1302-203

22 February 2023

Aftermath of an Eating Disorder

One in every five kids has developed an eating disorder in the year of 2023. Eating

disorders (EDs) are the third ranked chronic illness that impact teens, and roughly 28.8 million

Americans suffer from this type of disorder. Unfortunately, doctors do not always fully explain to

patients what an eating disorder is nor its negative effects on the body. In essence, an eating

disorder is any type of mental problem where a person's physical or mental health is impaired

and their eating behavior is persistently disturbed. The wonders of this topic pertain to how a

person may develop an eating disorder and the effects it may have on an individual.

Eating disorders do not spring up out of nowhere in most cases. As Marjorie J. Hogan,

and Victor C. Strasburger stated in, “Body Image, Eating Disorders, and the Media","Family

influences play a major role in adolescent weight concerns” (Hogan and Strasburger 521). From

a young age remarks on size and shape are made that may influence and impact a child’s

self-esteem. Even though family plays an important role, peers and the media provide further

insecurities that lead to creating these eating disorders, whether it is binge eating disorder,

bulimia nervosa, or anorexia. The media provides unrealistic standards that increase

self-consciousness. According to Hogan and Strasburger, young women's negative attitudes

about their own bodies grow when they are exposed to photos of skinny models while adolescent

males desire a more muscular or masculine body (Hogan and Strasburger 521).
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It does not matter where the disorder originates from rather how it stays and it affects a

person. People that struggle with eating disorders are inclined to go to a nutritionist to balance

their eating habits because they tend to want to remove all the negative results created by the

disorder. In most cases an eating disorder will affect the mind of a person and overthrow their

physical health. An example of this is known studies of Tzischinsky et al in “Sleep Quality and

Eating Disorder-Related Psychopathologies in Patients with Night Eating Syndrome and Binge

Eating Disorders.” The authors provide an overview of the various types of eating disorders that

are widespread including Night Eating Syndrome. They prove how night eating, evening

hypophagia, morning anorexia, sleeplessness, a failing mood [that worsens at night], and

emotional suffering are linked to an eating disorder . The inability to fall asleep is a well-known

symptom of EDs. They show how eating disorders are usually associated with mental

comorbidity and sleeplessness, and that these associations become more pronounced as the

severity of the ED symptoms increases. To perform research, 170 women of various ages were

asked to participate. Using the brief international neuropsychiatric interview for bulimia nervosa,

binge eating disorders, and NES, patients had a full clinical mental evaluation in accordance with

the recognized diagnostic criteria for NES. In addition to completing self-report questionnaires,

those who agreed to participate in the study were given an actigraph to wear on their

non-dominant wrist to monitor their sleep for at least five days and nights. When the actigraph

and self-reported sleep questionnaire were returned, they employed a program to check the

quality of the sleep. In all the eating disorder groups that were documented, the researchers

discovered after receiving their data back, poor sleep quality was observed.

In some cases, for instance, The Outcome of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Findings From

the Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort Study,” by G. C. Patton, C. Coffey, and S. M. Sawyer,
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there is not an apparent correlation nor continuation to adulthood. According to these authors,

eating disorders persist from youth into early adulthood. The authors requested that students

complete surveys for this study (with parental agreement). They kept track of their heights,

weights, levels of anxiety and sadness, and it took them around 6 years to see if their eating

habits had changed noticeably. According to the data gathered, the authors' experiment group

was shown to be incorrect, and they came to the conclusion that the majority of eating disorders

do not last into adulthood. Even though the results were different, they did show that eating

disorders and problems with anxiety and depression may be related.

On the other hand, and as mentioned before, the mental well-being of a human with an

eating disorder begins to deteriorate. In multiple studies and experiments

[Experiments with correlation}

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Works Cited

Doyle, Angela Celio, et al. “Psychosocial and Physical Impairment in Overweight Adolescents at

High Risk for Eating Disorders*.” Obesity, vol. 15, no. 1, Wiley, pp. 145–54. Crossref,

https://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2007.515.

Green, Melinda A., et al. “Eating Disorder Behaviors and Depression: A Minimal Relationship

Beyond Social Comparison, Self-esteem, and Body Dissatisfaction.” Journal of Clinical

Psychology, vol. 65, no. 9, Wiley, pp. 989–99. Crossref,

https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20586.

Hogan, Marjorie J., and Victor C. Strasburger. “Body Image, Eating Disorders, and the Media.”

Adolesc Med 19, pp. 521–48.

Johnson, Jeffrey G., et al. “Eating Disorders During Adolescence and the Risk for Physical and

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https://doi.org/10.3109/09638237.2014.889286.

Patton, G. C., et al. “The Outcome of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Findings From the Victorian

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Rieger, Elizabeth, et al. “Identifying the Contingencies of Self‐worth Associated With Eating

Disorder Symptoms: The Use of Choice‐based Conjoint Analysis.” International Journal

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of Eating Disorders, vol. 54, no. 12, Wiley, Oct. 2021, pp. 2167–79. Crossref,

https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.23634.

Sawaoka, Takuya, et al. “Social Anxiety and Self-consciousness in Binge Eating Disorder:

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Thew, Graham R., et al. “The Phenomenology of Self-critical Thinking in People With

Depression, Eating Disorders, and in Healthy Individuals.” Psychology and

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751–69. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12137.

Tzischinsky, Orna, et al. “Sleep Quality and Eating Disorder-Related Psychopathologies in

Patients With Night Eating Syndrome and Binge Eating Disorders.” Journal of Clinical

Medicine, vol. 10, no. 19, MDPI AG, Oct. 2021, p. 4613. Crossref,

https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10194613