The causes of eating disorders

A few weeks ago I watched an episode of Dr. Phil about a 27 year old woman who weighed only 82 pounds. She was suffering from a severe case of anorexia and bulimia. Everyone in the audience knew what the show topic was. They were aware the Dr. Phil would be interviewing a sick and extremely skinny woman. Even with this knowledge the members of the audience could not help but to gasp and some even cringed at the sight of the woman when she walked on the stage.

This show sparked my interest for a research topic. What causes eating disorders? By eating disorders I do not just mean anorexia and bulimia, but also obesity. When victims of these disorders are in public, the people surrounding them point, giggle, make faces, and comments to the people next to them. Many people do not understand these disorders and most do not care to learn.

There is much more to these people than just a problem with food. The woman on the Dr. Phil show was raped at a young age and did not have a healthy relationship with her father. He blamed her for the rape and did not show any sympathy to her feelings. After that traumatic experience she began to punish herself by withholding food and starving herself. This is not unusual for people with eating disorders. They try to control their feelings with food. People struggling with obesity also try to control feelings with food, but instead of withholding the food they tend to over eat. Many people with obesity hide their feelings with food. They eat when they are sad, anxious,and celebrating. The food makes them feel better and in return they do not have to deal with their true feelings.

Along with feelings, personality traits also effect people with eating disorders. Many of these people have an addictive personality traits. They become addicted to eating or not eating. The problem elevates and they obsessed and food is all they can think about. It often tends to control their life to the point that they can not carry out normal day to day actions.

Many think that the people with these disorders are lazy or only striving for attention. I am hoping to dig deeper into this topic and find all the reason people struggle with these disorders.