The explanations involve genetic, physiological, social and psychological perspectives and include theories relating to childhood development and adolescent development.
Depression, loneliness, poor self esteem, substances abuse, feelings of inadequacy, anger and anxiety are common reason among people who developed eating disorder.
Part of the problem is our society’s obsession with thinness as the standard of physical attractiveness.
Before they reach puberty, girl in our society are socialized to want to be attractive to other people, to associated being thin with being attractive, and even to put themselves on strict diets to enhance their attractiveness.
They are likely to restrict fluid intake, as well as food intake, perhaps not understanding the difference.
As girls experience pubertal changes, they naturally gain fat and also face pressures on succeeding in the worlds; they have more reason than ever to be obsessed with controlling their weight, which helps explain why adolescence is a prime time for emergence of eating disorders.
At the same time excess fat is unhealthy. Increasing weight linked with increasing risk of heart disease. The ideal of fitness and its evil twin, fat phobia, became cemented into the mindset of the culture.
The dieting so common among females in our society is clearly s risk factor for eating disorders. Anorexia nervosa can, of course, be viewed as dieting carried to an extreme.
The need to be thin or the fear of becoming overweight has not been as important in Japanese culture as it is in North America, although this may be changing as cultures around the world become more westernized.
Researchers have argued that that attempts to diet may contribute to binge eating. Animal and humans are biologically programmed to compensate for severe restriction of food intake by overeating.
For many young Western women, looking good are more important than being healthy. For young females in middle to upper class competitive environments, self worth, happiness and success are largely determined by body measurements and percentage of body fat, factors that have little or no correlation with personal happiness and success in the long run.
The bulimic individual desperately attempts fight biology by controlling her eating, but one little lapse from a rigid diet is enough to loosen this control and precipitate serious binging. Stressful events or depressed moods can also undermine the bulimic individual’s usual restraints on eating.
Another factor may be the amount of emotional support a child receives from his or her parents. They way parents nurture their children impacts the youngsters’ ability to care for themselves.
Those who have not received adequate nurturing may think they don’t deserve to be look after and deprive themselves of food as a result. Later alternatively they may turn to food for comfort.
There is also evidence that one has a higher of developing an eating disorder if a relative has one and an even higher risk if it is a first degree relative. Many researchers are studying how genetic factors may contribute to the development of eating disorders.
Causes of eating disorders
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