Eating disorders among teenage girls

Eating disorders among teenage girls

Men and women are bound to have different experiences in health issues due to the differences in their physiological social, economic, biological, and cultural attributes. As such, analyzing health issues through gendered lenses can highly improve outcomes for specific populations.

The symptoms of eating disorders among teenage girls are overeating when stressed, strict dieting, depressed moods, disappearing after a meal, drug or alcohol abuse, excessive exercise, and irregular menstrual cycle, skipping most meals, distorted body image, unusual eating patterns, frequent weighing, insomnia, dry skin, dental cavities, hyperactivity, and loss of hair (NEDA, 2018). Also, eating disorders significantly impact on a teenager’s mental and physical health. The disorders can affect a person’s cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and neurological systems (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2016).

Consuming fewer calories than the body needs leads to breaking down of muscles, including the heart to use for fuel. This places a person at the risk of heart failure to a low heart rate. Purging by vomiting interferes with the normal digestion of nutrients and stomach emptying process, which can lead to bloating, nausea and vomiting, bacterial infections, and blood sugar fluctuations among others (CDC, 2017). Binge eating can rupture a person’s stomach besides causing malnutrition and intestinal obstruction.

Neurologically, starvation denies the brain the needed energy, which can cause difficulties in concentrating (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2016). It can also lead to seizures, fainting, dizziness, difficulties falling asleep, and sleep apnea, among others. Teenager battling food disorders may develop hormonal deficiencies as the body will not be able to achieve the appropriate hormone level without enough fat and calories in the diet. Eating disorders impact on a teenager’s social life by causing social isolation, which may make them depressed, stressed, and anxious (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2016).

It is essential to promote healthy development of teenagers in the society by preventing diseases and conditions. Eating disorders, for instance, can be prevented if detected before it is too late to reduce the impacts. However, there is limited information about eating disorders among teenage girls in most government health data sets. As such, this health issue needs to be studied more by epidemiologists and treatment options be expanded as teenagers battling an eating disorder live in agony and torment as they strive to meet the expectations set by the society. Also, eating orders have often been excluded from national large scale mental surveys; thus, very little information concerning the cognitive and behavioral profile of the disorders in the society. Studies that are eating disorders specific should be conducted so that a proper treatment plan is developed.

Applying Ecological Model

Ecological models recognize that there is an interaction between various factors that influence a health problem. As such, it focuses on the policy and environmental influences while also integrating psychological and social elements (De Vries, 2017). These models, therefore, ensure that the interventions that are developed to address an issue are very comprehensive. Due to its comprehensiveness, the ecological model has been applied in research and actual health practice for the past two decades.

The main component of this model is that there are multiple influences of behavior which include interpersonal (social and cultural), intrapersonal (psychological and biological), community, physical environment, organizational, and policy (De Vries, 2017). Applying an ecological model to address the issue of eating disorders among teenagers can produce excellent outcomes as it will help in understanding its causes and development of comprehensive interventions that can be applied at the population level. However, the weakness of this model is that it can be applied uniformly without considering cultural and societal differences which can lead to its failure (De Vries, 2017).

The rise of eating disorders and their prevalence among women has mainly been attributed to the cult of thinness that is propagated by social pressures through publications advising on weight-reducing procedures, the entertainment industry that majorly caters for slimmer figures, and the media attaching professional success and sexual allure to possessing a svelte figure. Most teenagers are influenced by these societal standards set by the media and peer pressure.

Besides, biological issues like genes may increase the susceptibility of a person to develop an eating disorder. Teenagers with family members who have suffered or are suffering from any of these disorders are only at a high risk of developing one. Psychological issues and child abuse may also influence eating disorders among teenagers in the US (USDA, 2019). Some of the underlying psychological problems that may contribute to it include low self-esteem, depression, impulsive behavior, anxiety, and troubled relationships.

Teenage girls with anorexia nervosa are so obsessed with being lean that they often end up much less than their ideal weight. Anorexia is associated with extremely high standards, perfectionism, and sensitivity to criticism (Golden, Schneider, & Wood, 2016). For instance, at times, taking part in sports, such as gymnastics or ballet that encourages being lean may cause eating disorders among teenagers. Teenagers with bulimia, on the other hand, eat large quantities of food but follow it up by purging.

There have been successful public health interventions in the past that were targeted on the macro environment, for instance, an improvement on the requirements of sanitation in agricultural production so that infections that emanate from food are reduced. Similarly, the macro-environment that relate to eating disorders can include industries like fashion and advertising, aesthetics, and diet-product. To achieve changes in the macro-environment, public health specialists often rely on policies, laws, and practice standards that define regulations for both the public and private sector.

The 21st Century Cures Act passed in 2016 aimed to expand prevention efforts for eating disorders and ease treatment access (FDA, 2018). The bill led to more coverage for eating disorders by insurance companies. The cost of eating disorder monthly treatments is too high to be paid by most patients out of pocket; thus, the importance of cover treatments (Golden et al., 2016). Although the bill supports early detection and prevention programs, it does not give a clear structure of how funding for the programs is to be raised. There is, therefore, need for defined funding channeled towards prevention and treatment programs of eating disorders.

Following the ecological model, therefore, interventions that can help in dealing with eating disorders among teenagers can include strengthening of regulations on specific product categories like diet pills, deceptive advertisements, and cosmetics surgery industry to maximize population-wide reach (Volpe et al., 2016). For instance, the government can resolve to ban the employment of runway models who do not meet a set BMI requirement to prevent cases of starvation among aspiring models. As such, change practice standard in relevant industries and refraining from advertisements that stigmatize overweight teenagers should be considered to prevent eating disorder cases.

Advocacy to foster political will is also necessary to ensure that the issues regarding eating disorders are moved up on both the social and political discourses for community leaders, policymakers, consumers, and the entire public. This can be achieved through activities like media advocacy, government lobbying, and community organizing to shift the social norms (FDA, 2018). There are several eating disorder advocacy, prevention, and treatment organizations that can spearhead the eating disorders struggle in the US. The National Eating Disorders Association and the Eating Disorders Coalition, for instance, can work together with epidemiologists to advocate for more funding and conduct more studies for a better comprehension of the prevention causes and treatment of these disorders. Working together, the two organizations can advocate for more policies to reduce the media influence on teenagers and can create awareness to promote healthy eating behavior among teenagers.

Social Justice and Health Inequities

Inequities profoundly affect people’s health all over the world as the most disadvantaged groups are often prone to adverse health outcomes. The economic and social determinants are among the main underlying factors that influence eating disorders among teenage girls. However, there is inequity regarding these determinants since the living conditions of a teenager shape individual outcomes at the household and community level (Tamagni & Taylor, 2017). Teenage girls from families that are poorer are more exposed to adverse health outcomes compared to their peers who are more advantaged.

The symptoms of eating disorders such as obesity are more prevalent among teenagers whose parents have low education levels (Volpe et al., 2016). Access to proper nutrition which is a crucial influence of eating disorders is also unequal among teenagers. Although the eating disorders can be prevented and even treated successfully, teenage girls can fail to get essential treatment due to limited access and lack of finances or insurance cover to meet the treatment costs (Tamagni & Taylor, 2017).

Over time, these disorders have been thought to afflict white, rich teenagers. As such, racial minorities and teenagers from poor socio-economic backgrounds may not recognize their need for preventive or treatment measures. Compared to eating disorders that are associated with low weight, it takes longer for higher weight patients to be identified and treated. To achieve health justice among teenagers, Tamagni and Taylor (2017) recommend interventions like empowering individuals by educating them, ensuring that people live in favorable conditions, promoting policies that are healthy and beneficial to populations, and strengthening every community to avoid disparities concerning the quality of health services offered.

I have gained more awareness while completing this assignment with the most striking one being on gender. The evidence pointing towards gender role in eating disorders can be drawn from two observations. The first observation is on the ratio of female-male incidences in which women enormously outnumber men in their rates of both bulimia and anorexia nervosa. The second one is that the social pressures on ideal body image are more focused on women. Societies that have been relatively immune to the media-driven pressures on women to have a slimmer figure have lower rates of these disorders.

Conclusion

Eating disorders are highly prevalent among teenage girls. However, most of them often manage to hide this problem from their family and friends, making it difficult to help them early enough. As such, most teenage girls in need of health interventions for eating disorders do not receive treatment. This paper recommends that treatment be made more accessible for teenagers having eating disorders using strategies such as treatment delivery through mobile apps, telemedicine, and the internet. Also, the media should come on board and include women with all body types in their advertisements to counter the stereotype that lean bodies are the best.