Interviewee: Zixuan Wang, a clinical psychology P.h.D student at George Washington University, a licensed psychologist.
1. What are eating disorders?
Eating disorders are characterized by abnormal eating habits such as bulimia and anorexia. Eating disorders are mental illness but can also seriously damage physical health
2. What are causes of eating disorders?
There are lot of factors can cause eating disorders, and the factors cause bulimia and anorexia are different. The anorexia may be caused by excessive dieting, while the bulimia may be caused by excessive pressure. Also, if parents have eating disorders, their children are likely to have eating disorders as well.
3. Do you mean eating disorders are related to genes?
No, there is no scientific research prove that eating disorders are genic diseases. It just what
statistical data showed.
4. Can you explain more about anorexia and bulimia?
The fear of gaining weight and a strong desire to be thin is one of causes of the disease. In this case, people with anorexia refuse to eat anything or just eat only small amounts of food because they are afraid that if they eat food, they will be fat. In some cases, the patients force themselves to vomit if they eat food.
Bulimia is another kind of eating orders, characterized by eating a large amount of food in a short amount of time. It is often accompanied with anxiety disorder. When the patient feel anxiety, they may can’t help eating food and eating can help them to release the feel of anxiety. The anxiety can also caused by the worry of shape, the fear of being fat, and the desire to be thin.
Some people only have anorexia or bulimia but some people may have both.
5. From a psychological point, why some girls are not satisfied with their body and try to use excessive dieting to lose weight?
First, excessive dieting does not necessarily relate to lose weight. Some people go on diet just want to control their weight. It reflects their desire of control. In several cases, we found that if children have very powerful or controlling parents, they are likely to excessive dieting because they feel that the weight is thing they can control. They get satisfactions through excessive because they feel they finally can control something.
But you’re right, some people, especially girls, go on a diet in order to lose weight and get the ideal shape. Talking about why girls want to lose weight, peer pressure is one incentive. If a girl see another girl who is slim and popular, she may also want to be slim. She wants to get attention and she wants a close relationship.
The social idealization of thinness is another factor. Influenced by media, for example, the model and actress on TV, many women wrongfully think that they are beautiful only when they are thin.
Thus, because these and some other factors, many girls become feel upset, unsatisfied, shame or self-discrimination about their body.
6. If the desire of losing weight has caused mental illness, like eating disorders, how to treat it?
I will recommend a 1- on -1 psychotherapy. First, we need to know why the patients feel unsatisfied with their body, then use cognitive therapy to help patients to change the thinking model, to better know and accept themselves. We can help patients to analyze if they have a negative emotion, what outcome will produce while what if they have positive emotion. The basic idea is to lead them to establish a right view. The group therapy can also be a useful way, to gather patients together to share their experiences and encourage others.
7. Normally, how long the therapy will take?
It depends on patients’ situation. At least, it needs 2 or 3 months.