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Researchers Looking Into How and Why Eating Disorders Occur
Eating is controlled by many factors, including
appetite, food availability, family, peer, and cultural practices,
and attempts at voluntary control.
Dieting to a body weight leaner than needed for health is highly promoted by
current fashion trends, Research reports that women's magazines contained 10.5
times as many advertisements and articles promoting weight loss as men's magazines.
Exposure to the media-portrayed "thin-ideal" on a sample of 157 female undergraduates
produced depression, stress, guilt, shame, insecurity, and body dissatisfaction.
Other outside influences that can influence the onset of eating disorders are
certain professions and activities with stringent weight requirements and/or
body image expectations.
Eating disorders involve serious disturbances in eating behavior, such as extreme
and unhealthy reduction of food intake or severe overeating, as well as feelings
of distress or extreme concern about body shape or weight. Eating disorders are
not due to a failure of will or behavior; rather, they are real, treatable medical
illnesses in which certain maladaptive patterns of eating take on a life of their
own.
Researchers are investigating how and why initially voluntary behaviors, such
as eating smaller or larger amounts of food than usual, at some point move beyond
some people's control and develop into an eating disorder. Studies on the basic
biology of appetite control and its alteration by prolonged overeating or starvation
have uncovered enormous complexity, but in the long run have the potential to
lead to new treatments for eating disorders.
Research is contributing to advances in the understanding and treatment of
eating disorders.
- Scientists and others continue
to investigate the effectiveness of psychosocial
interventions, medications, and the combination
of these treatments with the goal of improving
outcomes for people with eating disorders.
- Research on interrupting
the binge-eating cycle has shown that once a structured
pattern of eating is established, the person experiences
less hunger, less deprivation, and a reduction
in negative feelings about food and eating. The
two factors that increase the likelihood of bingeing—hunger
and negative feelings—are reduced, which
decreases the frequency of binges.
- Several family and twin
studies are suggestive of a high inheritability
of anorexia and bulimia, and researchers are searching
for genes that confer susceptibility to these disorders.
Scientists suspect that multiple genes may interact
with environmental and other factors to increase
the risk of developing these illnesses. Identification
of susceptibility genes will permit the development
of improved treatments for eating disorders.
- Other studies are investigating
the neurobiology of emotional and social behavior
relevant to eating disorders and the neuroscience
of feeding behavior.
- Scientists have learned
that both appetite and energy expenditure are regulated
by a highly complex network of nerve cells and
molecular messengers called neuropeptides. These
and future discoveries will provide potential targets
for the development of new pharmacologic treatments
for eating disorders.
- Further insight is likely
to come from studying the role of gonadal steroids.
Their relevance to eating disorders is suggested
by the clear gender effect in the risk for these
disorders, their emergence at puberty or soon after,
and the increased risk for eating disorders among
girls with early onset of menstruation.
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