Vegetarianism and Eating Disorders

I have read quite a number of articles and blog posts about this. Many with eating disorders have a vegetarian or vegan diet, no question; but are vegetarians more likely to develop eating disorders, or people with eating disorders more likely to adopt vegetarianism? 


There is no doubt that being vegetarian can be very healthy, and can cut out alot of fat from a persons diet. Red meat can be very fatty especially and vegetables have very few calories and virtually no fat in most cases. Therefore, changing to a vegetarian diet, could aid weightloss if the person also avoids cakes, chocolate, biscuits and cheese etc. This could be a reason for someone with an eating disorder, and desire to loose weight to become vegetarian. 


Also, being vegetarian give a person alot of control over their diet, especially if their family is not. They can decline the meals cooked for them and argue that it is for ethical reasons, this makes it far harder for parents to force fatty meat into the person. This may lead to the vegetarian cooking their own meals which they can control completely, or just them missing out on that component on the meal overall. This is another reason why someone with an eating disorder might decide to become vegetarian.


However, most of the diet meals and foods i see on the shelves at M&S, Boots, Tescos etc, contain chicken, turkey or fish, and many weightloss diets feature alot of lean meats. Therefore, it may be impractical for someone with an eating disorder to choose the go vegetarian as they cannot have the low fat, low calorie meal options (vegetarian meals often have cheese in for the protein part). Although, maybe this gives the vegetarian the excuse not to eat atall.


With regards to vegetarians developing eating disorders, i am one of these. I was born into a vegetarian family who wanted to help animals, it is therefore impossible for me to have made the derision based on weightloss. 


Vegetarians for animal rights purposes already feel strongly about food. If they ate meat, they would feel guilty. And feeling guilty after eating is associated with eating disorders. 


Furthermore, they also pay much more attention often, to what is in their food, how it is prepared etc. (i.e what fat or oil something is cooked in, is it grilled or fried etc.) Therefore, there is always more emphasis on food than for a person with a normal diet. The vegetarian may also have to constantly check packaging of food before they buy or eat it, consequently they are more aware of the contents of what they eat and cannot avoid seeing the nutritional content (i.e calories and fat). If something is high in calories for example, they may put it down, but someone who has not had to check the ingredients, may not even see the statistics on the packaging and therefore not have as much of an awareness about GDA and nutritional requirements and values.


Personally, i know that people do become vegetarian in order to loose weight, and people with eating disorders do this so they can avoid food. But i also think that being vegetarian does place more emphasis and importance on food. I dont blame my anorexia on being vegetarian but i wouldnt rule out the possibility that it has made my knowledge of food more extensive and may have aided my weightloss. It is not a pleasant thought to think that the way my parents have raised me and the ethical and moral decision i made to stay vegetarian has cause such a horrible illness. I would like to think it hasnt. But at least i can be sure that i really did become vegetarian for my families own values. 


Sophie x

Negative Self Evaluation Explaination

Fairburn et al. did a study in 1999 which found that a high risk factor for bulimia was negative self evaluation. Another study by Button identified low self esteem to be a risk factor for eating disorders. Perfectionism is also a trait with a high risk factor, which would increase and intensify a negative self evaluation. 

Buttons study involved 594 school girls aged 11 to 12, who were evaluated for self esteem.  400 of these girls were followed up when they were 15 to 16 by answering a questionnaire about eating and psychological problems. Those with low self esteem when they were 11 or 12 were more likely to have low self esteem later, they were also more at risk of eating disorders and other problems related to health family and school.

This all seems fairly obvious, but there you are.

Sophie x 

A New and Stupid Theory

A new theory... My dads theory. It has no scientific evidence what so ever, it is a mere thought probably due to prejudice against diet drinks. Frankly, Its ridiculous, but he believes it. 

Yesterday, i dont know how or why but my my dad looked in my bag, which is annoying enough, but then (and i am in bed at this point trying to get to sleep) he starts shouting at me saying about 'why have i a got diet drink in my bag' 'your not in the diet bracket' 'full of chemicals but no calories' and blah. Thing is, i KNOW diet coke is full of chemicals and bad for you etc. so is alcohol and smoking, yet people do it because they like it, and they know that you can get away with doing some things which are not good for you. My dad drinks loads of alcohol practically every night which is probably worse for you then drinking diet drinks from time to time. And as for the no calories thing, as long as it is in addition to my meal plan, whats the problem?

Anyway, my dad's theory. What he said yesterday was that it was the chemicals in those drinks which had screwed up my brain and made me want/think i needed to diet. So there you go.. according to him its artificial sweeteners that cause anorexia!

Sophie x

Pressure To Succeed Explaination

Anorexia is perhaps most common in families where the parents professional an middle class. It is also more common in those who go on to higher education. This could suggest a link between the illness and a will and the pressure to succeed and improve. Also, from the pressure to succeed from family, can come depression an other psychological problems (including anorexia) if the pressure is too much. 

This does make sense to me. I think i am in middle class, i am in higher education (college, and intend on going to university) and my mum has always put a hell of alot of pressure on me. The pressure i got was to do well in exams. I know another anorexic whos mother pressured them alot into being 'cool' and social. There does appear to be a link between the two in my eyes. 

It has ling been something my family and me have thought that i have had some depression which manifested itself as an eating disorder and if it hadnt been that, it would be something else like drug abuse. This would support that pressure leads to psychological problems including depression and anorexia.

Sophie x

Individual Identity Explaination

It has been suggested that eating disorders can be related to family issues and relationships. This involves adolescent's 'struggle' to gain an individual identity and independence. In some families, the parents will enforce so much control that the children to not gain a sense of individuality, resulting in low-self esteem. Part of the family control may be that the parent cooks the meals and the child eats them. Therefore, a way to resist the control and find individuality and independence, may be not to eat.

This theory seems quite stretched. I think it seems like too smaller thing to have such a large impact (although i suppose it is often the small things). Perhaps vomiting is a more extreme form. If a meal is cooked by a parent and the child throws it back up, that could be seen as resisting control. 

I know that i was always made to sit at the table and eat my meal. I was an extremely fussy eater as a child but my dad would not let me leave the table without eating everything. So i guess in this way, control was enforced on me. But still, i dont think i would use this to rebel. It seems too cruel and an insignificant thing to rebel with. I dont know, i dont think this applies to me, but it is a plausible theory.

Sophie x

Psychodynamic Explainations

If you didnt know, Freud created the psychodynamic approach and it is very controversial. Freud was the fist person to suggest we have an unconscious mind which influences our behaviour and also that we have drives within us, constantly in conflict, determining how we behave. It is controversial because of how strange and weird some of his theories are, for instance, that children go through psycho-sexual stages of development. 


Repressed sexual impulses. Freud said that eating is a substitute for sexual expression and therefore, anorexia could be seen as a way to repress sexual urges. Psychologist Hilde Bruch suggested that anorexia is connected with psycho-sexual immaturity. 


A suggestion is that woman have fantasies about impregnation and confuse fatness with pregnancy. They unconsciously believe that eating will lead to pregnancy and so starve themselves. I would just like to point out that this makes very little sense to me! I thought unconsciously we all wanted to carry on our genes and continue the race, therefore we would want to be pregnant on an unconscious level. 


Another suggestion is that eating becomes linked to taking on an adult role, including an adult sexual role and so the women who cannot face this, will starve themselves to avoid it. So they can maintain childhood or regress to it. Bruch claims it has a mutual reward for both mothers and daughters. The mother may be over anxious about her daughter growing up, limiting her independence and keeping her child-like. For the daughter, her behaviour has enabled her to continue to be dependent on her mother. I have heard theories similar to these before, i didnt know that they were originated from the psychodynamic perspective for a long time though. I think it does make sense that a person may want to remain a child and not want to grow up, and it does seem like anorexia is a way to prevent this physically as it prevents puberty. However, i dont think this applies to me as i have always been desperate to grow up to fast! I also think that a mother could possibly want her daughter to remain 'her baby' and not grow up. However, my mother certainly want me to get out of this and i dont think she wants me to stay this way!


Sexual abuse and gender socialization. Psychotherapy studies indicate that eating disorders are associated with early experiences of sexual abuse. A large proportion of those studied had experienced this. However, i know i and many others have not been abused in this way, so this is not a necessary criteria.


Well i certainly have my doubts about these explanations, but maybe i am biased because i am inclined to reject Freud's theories just because i dont want to believe that humans are so weird.


Sophie x  

Cognitive Explainations

The cognitive approach looks at thought processes to explain behaviour. The key point in the Cognitive Approach to this issue, is that it is caused by a persons irrational beliefs that they cannot be valued unless they have an ideal body and physical appearance. And as people with eating disorders often have a distorted body image (usually that they are fat), they continue to loose weight in order to get to that perfect body image.


Thoughts which have been noted by psychologists Bemis-Vitousek and Orimoto (1993) were consistent with with the model of Abnormality, for example "I am not yet thin so i must lose more weight". Irrational thoughts were also noted "I must continue to lose weight so i can continue to be in control of my body" this is an irrational attitude about control, as except there is no control as they are losing a dangerous amount of weight.


Fairburn et al. in 1999 conducted an interview study which compared 169 eating disorder sufferers, 102 people with other psychiatric disorders and 204 healthy controls. The results showed that many eating disorder sufferers were perfectionist and had a negative self evaluation. 


The cognitive approach suggests that irrational thoughts is what causes these disorders, but it doesnt tell us where these irrational thoughts come from.


I certainly think this is a plausible explanation. I know for sure that these irrational thoughts have been on my mind. It is a shame that it cannot tell us where these thoughts originate and why we have them.


Sophie x

Behavioural Explanations

The next psychological approach: The Behavioural Approach.


Media promotes the message that 'thin is beautiful'. From advertising in teenage magazines to TV. Therefore, people frequently turn to diets. Many, as i did, originally decide on just going on a diet, but it went too far.


Classical And Operant Conditioning
Classical conditioning suggests that slimming becomes a habit, through stimulus response mechanisms. So a person goes on a diet, and when they get slimmer, receives complements and admiration from others and creates an association between getting slimmer and feeling good about themselves. Operant conditioning comes when a person's dieting behaviour is further reinforced by these complements and the admiration. Refusing to eat may also be reinforced by attention received from parents and friends. Or starving can be an effective way to punish parents. [these last 2 ideas are not very nice, i dont like them and hope they arnt true]


Cross cultural studies seem to support the behavioural explanations. Eating disorders are more common in industrialised societies (Europe, USA, Canada etc.), in these places there is an abundance of food, yet being attractive is associated with being thin. A 1994 study showed that immigrants to these countries developed eating disorders more than those in their original country.


I think this is plausible, cross cultural studies do back the theory up. However, i didnt really receive any positive reinforcement (all my friends told me to stop because i was already slim apparently, this was probably true but i interpreted it ad them not wanting me to get skinny and attractive.. im such a douche!) and i wouldnt like to think it was for the attention or to punish.


Sophie x

Inspirational Graphics Comments

The Biochemical Theory

This theory is within the biological approach. It says that eating disorders could be caused by chemical imbalance. 


Research has been based on the hypothalamus which is part of the brain. When this part of the brain is damaged, animals has stopped eating and even starved themselves to death (i dont like the sound of this research, sound un ethical to me). According to a study in 1983, 2 parts of the hypothalamus work together as a kind of weight control. Depending on which one is activated, hunger or no hunger will be felt. Which one is activated depends on if weight falls or rises above a set point. If this malfunctioned, it may cause eating disorders, however there is no significant enough evidence to support this theory.


Other research has found that low levels of serotonin could be associated with binge eating.


Im not sure about these theories. They seem so scientific and reductionist. I really feel that eating disorders are more caused by behavioural or cognitive theories, not our genetic make up or hormones. I dont see it as a physical, inside issue, i feel it is more responding to stimuli outside our own bodies. But although no strong evidence ha been found, we cannot deny science which has been proved, maybe further research will prove or disprove these theories.


Sophie x

Anorexia nervosa 'link to spring birth'

Ok, this is weird; some researchers are saying that being born in Spring increases chances of developing anorexia. And being born in Autumn lowers the risk. This was on the BBC website, full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13208401 

The article said this:

"A report published in the British Journal of Psychiatry suggests temperature, sunlight, infection or the mother's diet could be responsible.

Other academics said the effect was small and the disorder had many causes.

The researchers analysed data from four previous studies including 1,293 people with anorexia.

The researchers found an "excess of anorexia nervosa births" between March and June - for every seven anorexia cases expected, there were in fact eight.

There were also fewer than expected cases in September and October.

Dr Lahiru Handunnetthi, one of the report's authors, at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, said: "A number of previous studies have found that mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression are more common among those born in the spring - so this finding in anorexia is perhaps not surprising."

I am actually a Spring baby. The research talks about temperature, sunlight, diet, vitamin D etc. as being the cause of this, but i think its more likely to be the type of parent. Parents who plan births often plan to give birth in the Spring, i know this is true of my mother. She wanted to be in control of the birth, and this controlling trait may have been passed down to me. Or another trait related to control. I suppose the researchers know best... but i think my theory works!


Sophie x 

Inspirational Graphics

Genetic Explaination

I wanted to look more into the causes of anorexia in this post. There are so many psychological explanations that i am going to split them up between posts. I am a psychology student (A-level) and so i have access to alot of information on this subject. However, i am on the only course which doesnt cover eating disorders, which is annoying because i would probably ace that section! Ok so onto the genetic explanation!

Even though science has yet to be able to identify genes for specific behaviours, eating disorders can still be researched from this perspective by looking at families and whether a disorder runs in the family.

Reports in 1994 said that there was an increased risk of eating disorders if first degree biological relatives (parents, children, siblings) had been diagnosed with an eating disorder.  However, this may not be due to genetics as families often share the same environment and living conditions and experiences. Behaviour may also have been learned by other family members.

There have been studies on twins which provide much more reliable evidence. The research compares identical (where the twins are genetically the same) and non identical twins (where the twins are only as genetically similar as regular siblings). Environmental factors can therefore be largely ruled out if a significantly higher concordance (both twins having the same disorder) were to be found in identical twins than non identical. 2 psychologists; Holland et al. (1984) and Kendler et al. (1991) both claim to have found evidence of genetic bias in both anorexia and bulimia. 

I may go into these studies in detail in a later post, but right now im just going to write the conclusions and explanations. There was a higher concordance between identical twins than non identical in both the studies. In Holland's study about anorexia, there was a 55% concordance, however, this means that 45% were discordant (one had a disorder, the other didnt).


Some such as Hsu (1990) have suggested that the genetic element may not be to do with an eating disorder gene, but personality traits. Traits like perfectionism and emotional instability which make a person more susceptible to stress, which could then turn into an eating disorder (or another mental disorder). Apparently, in many cases of eating disorders, the family have a history of mood or personality disorders.


I think the idea of personality traits is true. I know that there are many of these which people with eating disorders share so this makes sense.  However, as far as i know there have been no eating disorders in my family and no depression or any mental illnesses (although it is quite possible there have and i just dont know, its not really one of those things you talk about i suppose). I think genetics definitely could be a factor.


In later posts i am going to go through the other theories by the different approaches and perspectives of psychology. Hopefully, by the time i have gone through them all, i (and you!) will have a better and broader understanding of these disorders.

Sophie x 

Inspirational Graphics

Why Do I Look At Thinspo?

Before i began recovery, id actually never looked at any 'thinspiration' or any pro ana sites. But since starting recovery i have been looking on them. I look at them quite regularly too and i couldnt really work out why. I think it is some very vein reason about how i am thin enough to be in one of the pictures and be admired by people or something. This is all very embarrassing to write about!

On a youtube thinspo video, someone posted a comment which basically sums up why i watch it.

'i watch these to feel better about myself

I'm really skinny but i feel unattractive and awkward compared to the girls who have more meet on their bones... i especially don't like my super skinny arms.

However, seeing these? girls envied and looking so happy makes me appreciate myself more ;)'

I think that is exactly right. It puts into words what i was struggling to express. Its comforting to hear that others share the same, strange desire to look at thinspo. I have no chance of remaining this thin, so i wont stay like these girls and i know that, so why am it seems strange that i would want to see anorexia glamorised when i wont be in that category much longer.

Sophie x 

Inspirational Graphics

Barbie

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/galia-slayen/the-scary-reality-of-a-re_b_845239.html

 

The link goes to the full article. But the picture kindof speaks for itself, The girls in the picture is Galia Slayen, she created a doll made to the proportions of what a Barbie doll would look like if she was a full size person. It was made as part of the first National Eating Disorder Week. I think its mad!

Especially how by the age of 3 most girls own a Barbie. It had been said about Barbie dolls a million times before that they are extremely un realistic and show an unrepresentative female figure to young children. I dont blame Barbie doll for my anorexia, but i did own some like many young girls and on an unconscious level they may have contributed to insecurities about my figure.

I think is was a great idea to make the doll and it conveys a message perfectly in a visual way which anyone could understand. The full article is very interesting so i recommend reading it!

Sophie x

Addiction

Yesterday, I started a new case study in my AS Psychology course. The case study is about people addicted to gambling. As part of the background information, we had to learn the definition of and addiction, and its components. I have heard people say that anorexia is an addiction before, but i never understood that until now.

Addiction: A behavioral pattern characterised by compulsion, loss of control and continued repetition of a behavior or activity in spite of adverse consequences.

It fits perfectly. It is a behavioral pattern. The compulsion is not to eat. I have completely lost control (dispite thinking i had ultimate control), and even though i may not be able to have children, my hair is falling out, my heart and bones may be weak and i look horrible i still cannot break it.

Components:

Salience: Food is the most important thing to me, and it is always on my mind. (e.g. watching cookery shows, reading recipies etc.)
Euphoria: When i do eat alot of food (i.e. going out for a meal and being forced too eat lots, maybe even a pudding). I do get a rush of energy. At the same time, if i decline food dispite wanting it, i also get a rush - a sense of achievement.
Tolerance: This component does not fit aswell, exept that i became able to resist food more and more.
Conflict: I think this one fits best. I often engage in conflicts with family members and cause social misery. Moreover, i am also in constant conflict with myself.
Withdrawl Symptons: When a ritual or rule is broken, i become very distressed and shake or cry or rock.
Relapse: This one is quite scary, we learned that even if people shake their addictive behavior, it is easy to fall back. And it is true, many anorexics do relapse.

This is what we learned about addiction, and it can all be applied to anorexia in my opinion.

Sophie x

How/When

I do not know exactly how or when my illness started.

I remember having strange thoughts about food, restricting my diet and inducing vomiting in years 8 and 9. But these phases passed quickly. I think it was year 10 when things got out of hand. And my focus was ceented in my mind on New Years Eve 2009 when i began a diary; I wrote

"New Years Resolution: Loose Weight"

As for the how, I can's say. My therapists and parents seem to think it was because I once recieved a Bebo (social networking site) quiz from a fried saying that I "had bad legs". She is a good friend of mine and she didnt mean to be cruel. It stuck in my mind. Thing is I have exeama (sp?) on my legs so this ay have been what she meant, but I have always been fixated on the size of my legs.

I have read numerous articles and thories of causes: biological, cognitive, social approaches.

I dont know if I will ever know the cause though, and I beloeve it is very different for every sufferer.

Sophie x