Anorexia is not given the attention that it deserves. Mental illnesses themselves are considered by most to be far more controllable than say, diabetes. Anorexia is one that receives some of the worst criticisms, and also takes the most lives. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, in present day there are over 10 million people with anorexia and bulimia.
There are some people, such as the brilliant Dr. Laura Hill, who recognize that anorexia is a biological disorder, just as much as diabetes is. As Dr. Hill explains, anorexia is actually due to the malfunction of the insula (the portion of your brain that signals hunger or fullness). When a person with anorexia eats food, their insula does not signal to them that that food fulfills a hunger, which causes their amygdale to become alarmed and assume that there is something wrong with what is going on in this eating process. This causes a “noise” in the anorexic person’s brain causing them anxiety throughout the day. This noise is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex trying to make sense of the lack of pleasure signals from eating. Maybe I’m eating too much? Maybe this food is bad? Maybe this food is making me fat? The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is confused; it doesn’t know what to make of all of this, so it just goes on speculating, thinking, creating “noise”. To combat this anxiety, they refuse to eat in order to quiet this “noise” and proceed with their day.
As if this wasn’t tragic enough, one of the biggest obstacles with eating disorders is misinformation, especially to the general public. If you were surprised by that last paragraph, then you can personally attest to that misinformation. Unfortunately, the root of this information lies in misinformed scholars. Christian Nordqvist, for example, flippantly describes anorexia in Medical News Today as a person with “an irrational fear of becoming overweight-therefore (someone who will) deliberately try to lose weight.” If Medical News Today is even describing anorexia as an irrational fear, then how can we expect any lay person to take this disease seriously?
People all around the world suffer from this horrible disease, yet are increasingly told that they need to “just eat” and they will feel better. If this exponential behavior does not stop, anorexia will be ignored to the point of such accumulation that it will take more lives than ever before.
Cite:
TED Talks Video: Eating Disorders from the Inside Out: Laura Hill at TEDxColumbus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEysOExcwrE
Nordqvist, Christian. "What is Anorexia Nervosa? What is Bulimia Nervosa?." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 3 Mar. 2009. Web.
23 Sep. 2013. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/105102.php>
You are right, your penultimate paragraph is surprising. I've read a good amount on anorexia as a legitimate disorder, but I'd never read about the "noise" issue before.
ReplyDeleteGood post. The biology of the eating disorders was new to me. You could have also explained how the disorders were thought to be psychological as well.
ReplyDeleteFantastic opening. Assuming this is a subject that is actually important to you, I would definitely look into Dorthea Dix if I were you. You'll read a lot about her in the later part of APUSH, she was the first advocate for the mentally ill. She wrote multiple papers on the deplorable conditions of sanitariums, and how mental illness was a "real thing". Up until her, the mentally ill were treated as less intelligent beings who could have the illness practically beaten out of them. You definitely sound like she might have sounded when she was younger. Overall, great post.
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