Adolescents Perception of weight/ causes of eating disturbances eating disturbances - Essay Example

G. 2001 & Fouts, G. T., & Vaughan, K.K, 2002). Clinically these disturbances are recognized as obesity, characterized by excessive accumulation of fat tissue, and psychologically by helpless ineffectiveness in the face of bodily urges and social demands, or as anorexia nervosa, extreme leanness and cachexia, representing an over rigid effort at establishing a sense of control and identity while suffering from an all-pervasive sense of ineffectiveness (Harris, E. S., and Johnson, J. G., 1997, Adams, M. J., Bereiter, C.

, Carruthers, I., Case, R., Hirshberg, J., McKeough, A., et al., 2000) Severe psychiatric problems are also encountered in those who maintain what looks like a normal weight but who are continuously preoccupied with their appearance and dietary manipulations, a group referred to as "thin fat people" (Phelps, L., Sapia, J, Nathanson, D., & Nelson, L. 2000, Byely L, Archibald AB, Graber J, Brooks-Gunn J, 2000). Others alternate between phases of rigid reducing followed by rapid weight increase, seemingly unable to stabilize at any weight; they may lose and gain a total of as much as 500 pounds during the adolescent years.

(Adams, M. J., Bereiter, C., Carruthers, I., Case, R., Hirshberg, J., McKeough, A., et al. 2000, Stice, E., Spangler, D., & Agras, W. S., 2001)-There is probably no other group of people as concerned and preoccupied with their physique and appearance as adolescents, before and after pubescence (Stice, E., Killen, J. D., Hayward, C., and Taylor, C. B., 1998, Loxton NJ; Dawe S. 2001). They are forever worried about their size, whether they are too tall or too short, about the adequacy of their sexual maturation, and about their attractiveness in general; but most of all they are preoccupied with their weight (Abdollahi, P.

, & Mann, T. 2001, Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Smailes, E., Kasen, S., Oldham, J. M., and Skodol, A. E., 2000b). The fear of being too fat, or rated as such, parallels the weight consciousness of our society, which condemns even mild degrees of overweight as ugly, undesirable, and a sign of self-indulgence (Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Smailes, E., Kasen, S., Oldham, J. M., and Skodol, A. E., 2000b, Daee A, Robinson P, Lawson M, Turpin JA, Gregory B, Tobias JD, 2002). Formerly an exceedingly rare disorder, anorexia nervosa seems to be on the increase in Western countries, where slimness is experienced by adolescents as the only respected state (Falk, K. B., & Wehby, J. H., 2001, Daee A, Robinson P, Lawson M, Turpin JA, Gregory B, Tobias JD, 2002).

Growth in Adolescence Adolescence, the period of active growth and maturation, is characterized by marked changes in eating habits and fluctuations in body weight (Baker CW, Whisman MA, Brownell KD, 2000, Byely L, Archibald AB, Graber J, Brooks-Gunn J, 2000). Growth during adolescence follows a specific human pattern, rigid in its sequence but varying considerably in intimate details from one individual to another (Baker CW, Whisman MA, Brownell KD, 2000, Loxton NJ; Dawe S.2001). Growth in stature precedes gain in weight (Falk, K. B., & Wehby, J. H. 2001, Steinberg, L. 2002). The filling-out process is greater in girls than in boys and appears to be determined, more than any other factor involved in this complex process of growth, by external factors (Walsh, B.T., Agras, W.S., Devlin, M.J., Fairburn, C.G., Wilson, G.T., Kahn, C.

, & Chally, M.K, 2000, Morris AM, Katzman DK., 2003). It is not uncommon during this period of active growth for some individuals to become plump and for others to become over slim (Abdollahi, P., & Mann, 2001, Schur EA, Sanders M, Steiner, 2003). O'Dea, J. A., & Abraham, S. (2000) illustrated it is important to