Sunday, October 02, 2016

Nutrition & Eating Disorders

Good Nutrition is important to support the rapid growth of adolescence and to establish healty eating habits that will last through adulthood. Unfortunately, U.S. adolescents eat fewer fruits and vegetables and consume more foods that are high in cholesterol, fat and colories and low in nutrient than adolescents in other industrialized countries (American Heart Association et al., 2006). Defiencies of calcium, zinc, and iron are common at this age (Bruner, Joffe, Duggan, Casella & Brandt, 1996; Lloyd et al., 1993).
   Worldwide, poor nutrition is most frequent in economically depressed or isolated population but also may result from concern with body image and weight control (Vereecken & Maes, 2000). Eating disorders, including obesity, are most prevalent in industrialized societies, where food is abundat and atractiveness is equated with slimness; but these disorders appear to be increasing in non-Western countries as well (Makino, Tsuboi, & Dennerstein, 2004).

Eating Disorders: Risk Factors and Symptoms
RISK FACTORS

  • Accepting society's attitudes about thinness
  • Being a perfectionist
  • Being female
  • Experiencing childhood anxiety
  • Feeling inceased concern or attention to weight and shape
  • Having eating gastrointestial problems during early childhood
  • Having a family history of addictions or eating disorders
  • Having parents who are concerned about weight and weight loss
  • Having a negative self-image
SYMPTOMS

Anorexia
  • Using laxatives, enemas, or diuretics inappropriately in an effort to lose weight
  • Binge eating
  • Going to bathroom right after meals
  • Excercising compulsively
  • Restricing the amount of food eaten 
  • Cutting food into samll pieces
  • Dental cavities due to self-induced vomiting
  • Confused or slow thinking
  • Blotchy or yellow skin
  • Depression
  • Dry mouth
  • Extreme sensitivity to cold
  • Fine hair
  • Low blood pressure
  • No menstruation
  • Poor memory or poor judgement
  • Significant weight loss
  • Wasting away of muscle and loss of body fat

Bulimia
  • Abuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas to prevant weight gain
  • Binge eating
  • Going to bathroom right after meals
  • Frequent weighing
  • Self-induced vomating
  • Overachieving behavior
  • Dental cavities due to self-induced vomiting



   From Diane E. Papalia and Ruth Duskin Feldman, A Child's World: Infancy through Adolescence, 12th ed., p. 407, Table 15.3.


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