Eating Disorder

Eating Disorder
Name
Institution
Eating Disorder
Body image is the opinion one has when they look in the mirror or what they picture in their mind. It comprises of one’s beliefs about their appearances like assumptions, generalizations, and memories, how they feel about their body in terms of weight, shape, and height. Individuals who think negatively about their body image have a high chance of having an eating disorder and are more probable to experience low self-esteem, obsessions with weight loss and depression. Prusky, Shear & Attia (2017) postulated that eating disorders are made up of severe disturbances in eating patterns, damaging efforts to manage body weight, and strange outlook on body shape and weight. It is common for teenagers to be concerned about their body image, particularly during adolescence. Dieting as an effort to develop body image is also typical. What can be abnormal about dieting is having unhealthy and severe restricting calorie ingestion. An eating disorder as stated by the DSM-IV-TR may be detected when one: there is a denial to retain body mass at or over a minimally standard weight for one’s age and height. Two: when a person has a severe fright of becoming overweight, despite the fact that their body mass is normal. Three: there is a disorder in how one’s body mass is experienced, excessive manipulation of body weight on self-assessment, or rejection of the gravity of the current low body weight (ter Huurne et al., 2015).
In an intervention for the prevention of eating disorder one element that will be included is to minimize social pressures.

Most people are influenced by what the society thinks. Trends such as women are more attractive when they are thin, and men who are acceptable are the ones with sturdy bodies are what are pressuring people to end up having unhealthy eating habits to fulfill their societal need of fitting in. Another element is reducing family concerns. Extreme cultural thoughts on weight and the magnitude of appearance and success are frequently communicated to children through the family. Another element to include in the prevention of eating disorder is to reduce individual factors like perfectionism and low self-esteem.
The element of minimizing family issues is appropriate for the development of children because cultural attitudes regarding body size and weight and also achievements and appearance are frequently conveyed to children through the family. It is crucial for parents to safeguard against passing on detrimental thoughts to their children. Parents and guardians should ensure communications are open to the entire family and that they permit their children to develop and detach from family as they get to maturity. They should also ensure that the children grow loving their appearance and body from a young age to avoid unhealthy habits due to peer pressure in future. For the adolescent, on the other hand, developing strategies that can lessen the impact of social influences can help in preventing eating disorders. Health experts, peers, parents, and the society can all have a say by not emphasizing on body shape, weight loss, and appearance and also decline to approve dieting as a fit or essential habit (Vall and Wade, 2015).
Of the three elements discussed above the reduction of individual factors will best apply to men because men are the ones to most likely suffering from low self-esteem and perfectionism because of how highly they are regarded in the society. The best way they can minimize these factors is by finding a balance through counseling when they are experiencing feelings of ineffectiveness and low self-esteem as well as other issues. For women, social pressures affect them the most and finding ways to reduce this will help in the prevention of eating disorders. Women from a younger age are forced to act and behave in a certain way, and these bring about negative tendencies especially when it comes to how they perceive themselves, body weight and size. Hence coming up with strategies to best lessen social pressures will help in the prevention of eating disorders.
References
Prusky, M., Shear, M., & Attia, E. (2017). Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa in Children and Adolescents. In Handbook of DSM-5 Disorders in Children and Adolescents(pp. 333-352). Springer, Cham.ter Huurne, E. D., de Haan, H. A., Marieke, C., Postel, M. G., Menting, J., van der Palen, J., … & DeJong, C. A. (2015). Is the Eating Disorder Questionnaire-Online (EDQ-O) a valid diagnostic instrument for the DSM-IV-TR classification of eating disorders?. Comprehensive psychiatry, 57, 167-176.
Vall, E., & Wade, T. D. (2015). Predictors of treatment outcome in individuals with eating disorders: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 48(7), 946-971.