Causes of Eating Disorders In the United States today “nearly 24 million people” (Hills Foundation) suffer from eating disorders, and the number in constantly increasing. These disorders include anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorders. While eating disorders affect all age groups the age group with highest number of cases is ages from 12-25. This age range accounts for “95 percent of those who have eating disorders” (Hills foundation). The scary thing is the problem can start at an even younger age. This is proven because in a study done it shows that “42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner” (Hills Foundation). These statistics are very shocking and leaves us wondering what could the possible causes of this be. While many people
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“The influence of social norms may be particularly salient during adolescence, when the importance of social success and social conformity within a defined community has developmental implications” (Gerbasi). What this is basically saying is that peer influence has a bigger impact on adolescents because of desire to have social success. The reason this has the potential to lead to eating disorders is because a person might really want to fit into a certain group, but in order to fit in to that group they feel they need to change something about them to fit in. This might be because the group might be talking about how you need to look a certain way to be attractive, influence them by the way the only eat certain things when they eat, or maybe they are straight up telling them that they need to lose weight in order to be attractive. Whatever the case may be the point is that peer pressure can have a huge impact on how someone views themselves. This in the end contributes to some people having an eating …show more content…
One personality disorder that could potentially lead to the development of and eating disorder is Obsessive compulsive personality disorder. First we have to know what obsessive compulsive personality disorder is. According to an article written by Randy and Lori Sansone, “Obsessive compulsive personality disorder is characterized by an intense preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization, and/or schedules; perfectionism that interferes with task completion; excessive devotion to work and productivity to the exclusion of social experiences” (Sansone). Now let’s say an individual with an obsessive compulsive personality disorder thinks that they might need to lose a little bit of weight in order to be healthier. So the person starts eating healthier foods and exercising more. That’s all great until their personality disorder comes into play, and they start becoming a perfectionist with it. This may cause them to start taking more extreme measures with their dieting so they can achieve the body they want. Now this is just a hypothetical situation, but there have been lots of cases reported that an individual with an eating disorder has also had an obsessive compulsive personality disorder. Now this doesn’t mean that every person with an eating disorder has some type of personality disorder, but is shows that some personality disorders can be another factor in a person
“The influence of social norms may be particularly salient during adolescence, when the importance of social success and social conformity within a defined community has developmental implications” (Gerbasi). What this is basically saying is that peer influence has a bigger impact on adolescents because of desire to have social success. The reason this has the potential to lead to eating disorders is because a person might really want to fit into a certain group, but in order to fit in to that group they feel they need to change something about them to fit in. This might be because the group might be talking about how you need to look a certain way to be attractive, influence them by the way the only eat certain things when they eat, or maybe they are straight up telling them that they need to lose weight in order to be attractive. Whatever the case may be the point is that peer pressure can have a huge impact on how someone views themselves. This in the end contributes to some people having an eating …show more content…
One personality disorder that could potentially lead to the development of and eating disorder is Obsessive compulsive personality disorder. First we have to know what obsessive compulsive personality disorder is. According to an article written by Randy and Lori Sansone, “Obsessive compulsive personality disorder is characterized by an intense preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization, and/or schedules; perfectionism that interferes with task completion; excessive devotion to work and productivity to the exclusion of social experiences” (Sansone). Now let’s say an individual with an obsessive compulsive personality disorder thinks that they might need to lose a little bit of weight in order to be healthier. So the person starts eating healthier foods and exercising more. That’s all great until their personality disorder comes into play, and they start becoming a perfectionist with it. This may cause them to start taking more extreme measures with their dieting so they can achieve the body they want. Now this is just a hypothetical situation, but there have been lots of cases reported that an individual with an eating disorder has also had an obsessive compulsive personality disorder. Now this doesn’t mean that every person with an eating disorder has some type of personality disorder, but is shows that some personality disorders can be another factor in a person