Mental Edge Podcast "Eating Disorders & Mental Health" - English 104

The podcast episode discusses eating disorders and their connection to psychology. It covers the different types of eating disorders, their signs and symptoms, the dangers they pose to the body, and the psychological factors that contribute to their development. The goal is to inform listeners about eating disorders and encourage individuals to seek help and recovery. The episode includes trigger warnings and emphasizes the importance of prioritizing mental health. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Mental Edge Podcast. This is your host, Makayla Culp. I'm a freshman here at Ball State University, and my major is nursing. Today's topic is what are eating disorders and how are they connected to psychology? We will be going over the different types of eating disorders in section one. In section two, we will be covering the common signs and symptoms of eating disorders. In section three, we'll be covering the dangers of eating disorders, and in section four, we will be covering psychological connections with eating disorders. The goal in today's podcast is to inform listeners of the different types of eating disorders and what they may look like. Many individuals don't realize how negative their eating habits are on both their mental and physical health. Recognizing these factors may help individuals seek help and recovery. I will also include a trigger warning as I do go into detail of these eating disorders. If you are easily triggered, I recommend to not listen to today's podcast. With this being said, let's get started. We will start with section one, the different types of eating disorders. First is anorexia. Anorexia is where individuals avoid food, restrict food, or eat very small quantities of certain foods. These individuals typically weigh themselves constantly, and they are extremely underweight. Next I'll discuss bulimia. Bulimia is overeating in large quantities and then compensating by taking laxatives, forcing vomit, overexercising, and fasting. This could be a combination of many of these. These people are typically underweight, normal weight, or overweight. Next I will be discussing binge eating disorder, which is also known as compulsive overeating. Similar to bulimia, binge eating consists of overeating in large quantities. However, there is nothing done to compensate for these individuals, often resulting in obesity. Next is ARFID, Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. This is where individuals limit the amount or type of food eaten. These individuals usually do not eat enough to maintain basic body functions or allow development in children. I found these on Health Topics Eating Disorders by the National Institute of Mental Health. I will now be discussing PICA. This is where individuals eat non-food substances and items. This usually causes medical conditions and stems from really unusual cravings. A lot of psychological findings can be used when examining this eating disorder. Obesity is where an individual has an unhealthy amount of excess body fat. This is usually acquired from genetics, overeating, or lack of exercises. This can also be related to behaviors and other things. Rumination disorder is a condition where an individual repeatedly regurgitates their food. Typically, it is re-chewed and re-swallowed and then spit out. These past three sources were found in Psychology Today Eating Disorders reviewed by Psychology Today staff. In Section 2, I will be discussing the common signs and symptoms of eating disorders. First will be anorexia. This goes along with amnesia, intense fear of weight gain, and distorted body image. These individuals are typically extremely underweight but still view themselves as fat and overweight. Typically, these individuals are so critical that it is fatal. Next is bulimia. Typically, these individuals have an inflamed and sore throat from vomiting and severe hydration from purging fluids. These individuals also have low electrolyte counts from the purging. In binge eating disorders, these individuals typically eat in secret, eat quickly in a small window. They also diet without the weight loss and have an intense feeling of remorse. In ARFID, there is a lack of appetite or interest in food and it is progressively worse than a picky eater. Typically, this results in dramatic weight loss. In PICA, these individuals have a potential intestinal blocking or toxic effects from whatever substance has been consumed. These substances can be very poisoning to your body. I found this source from What Are Eating Disorders by Angela Gard in MD, Physician Review. Next is obesity. Usually, the waist measurement is of 40 inches in men at least and 35 inches in women. These individuals typically have a BMI greater than 30%. It is typically greater than 40 to 45% in morbidly obese individuals. Rumination disorder occurs repeatedly over at least a one month period and is usually related to a diagnosed medical disorder. This medical disorder is usually mental. Now that we've gone over the different types of eating disorders in the common signs and symptoms, let's go to section three and talk about the dangers of eating disorders. The dangers of eating disorders typically target your systems in the body. Let's go over a few of these. The top system in your body is your cardiovascular system. As the individual is containing fewer calories, your body naturally starts to break down tissues, which means muscle is first to be lost. Muscle is your heart. Your heart will break down and cause your heart rate to drop and your blood pressure to drop. This increases your risk of heart disease. Next is your gastrointestinal system. Your body's digestion will slow and the individual may experience constipation. This is specifically with binging and purging and may also cause your esophagus and stomach to rupture. One of the main side effects of this is the intestinal obstruction, perforation, or infection. This is the blockage, holes in your intestinal wall and stomach, and poisoning to your body if you have consumed non-food substances, which is related to the PICA disorder. Next we'll be discussing the endocrine system. Without the needed fats and cholesterol that your body needs, an individual's hormones will change dramatically and usually drop, resulting in low estrogen, testosterone, and thyroid hormones. This makes an individual more prone to bone loss, which is osteoporosis, lower metabolic rates, which can lead to a decrease in body temperature, usually resulting in hypothermia, and it can also cause type 2 diabetes as your body begins to resist insulin. Other serious consequences include kidney failure due to dehydration, anemia due to low iron and too few red blood cells, and malnutrition, causing a low white blood cell count. It is very crucial to take care of our body so that we do not cause these. These sources were found in a journal review by European Eating Disorders, Volume 31. In Section 4, we'll be talking about the psychological connections with eating disorders. First, we will start with some triggers. These may include low self-esteem or control in your life, mental disorders such as anxiety or depression. Others would be interpersonal factors such as relationships, difficulty expressing emotion, physical or sexual abuse. Another key trigger is social influence. This includes cultural norms, social media, beauty definitions, also biological and genetic influence. This is caused by chemicals in the brain. As you can see, there's a lot of psychological triggers. It is not just specified to one. This source is from the Eating Disorders Program for the Department of Psychiatry at Singapore General Hospital. Other mental conditions that are accompanied with eating disorders could be schizophrenia, depression, or obsessive compulsive neurosis. This source is from a review in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. Eating disorders also have the highest rate of mortality in psychopathology, so psychiatric database study found that approximately 53% of eating disorder patients concurrently had anxiety and 43% had depression. This has shown that many disorders can affect one another. This source is from the MERS Mood and Anxiety Disorders Lab, the Melbourne School of Psychological Studies. I also found that in a review by Fortessa Cadreo of Baha'i Cognitive Psychology expressed ideas that memories and mental imagery is present in similar ways across many mental conditions. For example, positive and negative mental imagery has been shown to induce higher levels of positive and negative mood than verbal processing of the same material. This means it has a strong impact on emotions. Parental feeding practices and disordered weighting are risk factors for eating disorders in adolescents and children. This shapes the way that individuals may view weight gain and body image. You may be asking, how does this connect? Well, mental imagery and memory. Children do a lot based off of repetition and how their childhood is growing up. I found a quote that I liked from Getting to the Heart of Eating Disorders Treatment Review by Cynthia M. Bullock from the Department of Psychiatry of University of North Carolina. The quote is, eating disorders, genes load the gun and environment pulls the trigger by adding and spiritually deflects the bullet. This shows that a lot of eating disorders are due to genetics. A lot of environmental factors play into that and make them worse. It is important and crucial to put your mental health first as mental health plays a large part of eating disorders. Thank you all for listening to this week's episode of the Mental Edge podcast. Today we covered the different types of eating disorders, common signs and symptoms of eating disorders, the dangers of eating disorders, and psychological connections with eating disorders. I hope that we helped you reach the goal in today's podcast, which was to inform you of the different types of eating disorders and what they may look like, both physically and mentally. This is your host, Makayla Culp, and I hope you all tune in to next week's podcast.