Discussion: Eating Disorders, ADHD and Poor Self-Awareness (Research Paper Sample)

Eating Disorders, ADHD and Poor Self-Awareness
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Eating Disorders, ADHD and Poor Self-Awareness
Introduction
There has been a controversy on whether eating disorders are linked to ADHD and Poor Self-Awareness. Many people have eating disorders, but they are never healed even after treatment. It is also worth noting that, even though people have eating disorders might be very slim, they have to be on a diet for the rest of their lives. However, their health may later worsen while seeking treatments for their survival. Even with treatments, they still repeat binge eating, vomiting during the treatments, and never achieve fully treated. Therefore, finding out why eating disorders are difficult conditions to treat and seem easy to deal with becomes, thus making this an important purpose of study. All stakeholders, such as psychiatrists or dieticians, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) patients, people with eating disorders and those with obesity might want to understand the connection of ADHD to eating disorders (ED) in order to offer or acquire more effective treatment that is grounded on a grasp of these conditions.
For a long time, studies into Eating disorders have indicated that the disorders are not just tied to food abnormalities alone. However, it is only recently that researchers have delved more into the study of complex psychological, physiological and cultural attachments connected to eating disorders, such as binge eating among others. Researchers and health professionals have disagreed on whether there is a relationship between ED and ADHD, obesity and ADHD as well as ED and poor self-awareness caused by cultural and ethnic identities. They have also disagreed on whether cultural identities affect self-awareness of females more compared to males. This brings up an important question: Is there a relationship between eating disorders and attention deficit disorder (ADHD), and between eating disorders and poor self-awareness caused by ethnic or cultural identities?
Background
It is imperative to define Eating Disorders (ED) and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) in order to have an understanding of the relationship between ED and ADHD.
An eating disorder is an irregular or inappropriate eating habit that includes excessive or insufficient food consumption that jeopardizes the emotional and physical health of an individual. It includes bulimia nervosa (BN), anorexia nervosa (AN), binge eating disorders (BED), and other eating disorders that have not been defined (ENDOS). According to Nazar et al. (2008), 70 percent of adults who are diagnosed with ADHD show a sign of eating disorder. Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder is a state that can be identified by the presence of uncontrolled behavior, inattentiveness, lack of focus and hyperactivity. It is among the most common childhood disorders that can go on through adolescence and adulthood.
Past studies into eating disorders indicated that, eating disorders are not just tied to food abnormalities alone as there are other factors, such as cultural among others that trigger poor eating disorder. It is only recently that, researchers delved more into the research of the complex psychological, physiological, and cultural attachments connected to eating disorders, such as binge eating disorders. The stretched researches into other aspects that are tied to eating disorders have indicated that, eating disorders are tied to attention deficits and poor self-awareness (Davis, Levitan, Smith, Tweed, & Curtis, 2006).
A strong connection exists between eating disorders and ADHD. Patients who have eating disorders and ADHD exhibit common characteristics, such as low self-esteem, deficits in attention and varied degrees of impulsivity (Nazar et al., 2008; Davis, Levitan, Smith, Tweed, & Curtis, 2006). These deficits lead to overconsumption of food, binge eating and eating without hunger. Eating disorders occur mostly because of cognitive and emotional deficits (Ptáček, Kuželová, Papežová & Å tÄ›pánková, 2010). People who suffer from AN and BN have been found to have difficulties with executive functioning and weaknesses in contextual integration (Talleyrand, 2010). In addition to that, people with BN also exhibit a disintegrated response pattern, especially when put in contexts exposing them to negative emotions. On the other hand, patients who have AN exhibit high level of impaired decision-making and social cognition (Klump, Bulik, Kaye, Treasure & Tyson, 2009).
These impairments commonly occur in states of acute illnesses, and severely impair the abilities of judgment and interpersonal interactions. Therefore, eating disorders and the presence of other psychiatric conditions, which includes ADHD affects or limit the ability of patients to carry out their daily activities in a normal way (Davis et al., 2006). However, the social adjustments of these patients tend to be slow. In addition, their social communication skills are poor and their social networks are limited. Davis et al. (2006) showed that, eating disorders are linked to medical and social disabilities of psychiatric disorders that are costly to the patients, their families, and the society.
People suffering from obesity exhibit similar symptoms of as those having ADHD. Obesity can be defined as a condition originating from inappropriate eating habits. Riverin and Trembley (2009) noted that, some people who seek treatment for obesity are found with symptoms of ADHD, especially when they are adults. Delayed reward and reduced sensitivity to negative feedback are characteristics of both adolescents and adults and can be found to have ADHD (Davis et al., 2006). When obese people do something good, they often use food as reward. Therefore, for a long time, eating has been used as a reward in treating people with ADHD, thus creating a strong relationship between obesity and ADHD. However, in most instances, food rewards used as self-medication are significantly abused. ADHD patients need regular rewards to feel good as a way of compensating for the disorder (Riverin & Tremblay, 2009; Holtkamp et al., 2004).
In addition, patients with ADHD have an association with substance dependence, which in most cases is food. ADHD patients have used food as a source of mood enhancement. Since the deficiency of dopamine in the brain reward pathways causes ADHD, these patients have a higher risk of substance abuse (Cortese, et al., 2007). Therefore, they use highly delicious foods as a therapeutic proxy, which acts as a reward pathway, thus showing the linkage of ADHD to eating disorders. In Western countries, obesity is a problem that is often observed in children. Holtkamp et al. (2004) reported that, the obesity cases in the Western world have shown strong relationship with ADHD, which in most instances have been overlooked because less externalizing factors in obese children are not noticeable.
The other strong relationship between ADHD and binge eating is impulsive and inattentive components of eating disorder. Delayed aversion and deficient inhibitory control mechanisms contribute to abnormal eating behaviors (Klump et al., 2009), because the above conditions manifest in poor planning and difficulties in monitoring one’s behavior in an effective way leading to overconsumption of food (Davis et.al, 2006; Nazar et al., 2008). In addition, Klump et al. (2009) noted that, deficits in attention and other executive functions could make it problematic for a person with ADHD to follow a regular eating pattern. This failure could ultimately lead to abnormal eating behaviors. This is because there is a high probability that patients with ADHD could be inattentive to their signs of hunger, and thus forgetting to eat when they get other interesting things to do (Cortese, et al., 2007).
Eating disorders are tied to poor self-awareness that is influenced by ethnic identity. It is notable that, culture plays an essential role in developing strong self-awareness on its people. Different cultures have ideals to be followed by all people and this include food consumed by those belonging to the culture. On the other hand, if they do not have this body for one reason or another, they develop low self-esteem that turns into poor self-awareness. This factor contributes to inappropriate eating behaviors that could be considered as eating disorders.
Franko, Becker, Thomas, and Herzog (2007) acknowledge that, even though anorexia was originally believed to be featured mainly in white and European women, their research data indicates that, eating disorders occurs even in ethnically and socio-economically diverse populations. For instance, white women are likely to develop poor self-awareness, which could lead to eating disorders as a result of the fact that their culture despises fat women. Women from minority ethnic groups show lower rates of symptoms of eating disorders as compared to white women (Franko et al., 2007).
The significant differences that occur with respect to eating disorders in terms of ethnic and cultural differences are all tied to cultural beliefs that are defined by a specific ethnic or cultural group. Gordon, Castro, Sitnikov, and Holm-Denoma (2010) states that, acculturation has also changed the way eating disorders are conceived because it accelerates the acceptance and adoption of body ideals, for instance, concerning eating disorders. This has been clearly manifested by acculturated Latinas and Europeans compared to their counterparts who are not acculturated (Gordon et al., 2010).
Ethnic and cultural beliefs regarding body size, affect males and females in different ways as women and girls are more conscious about their body shapes as compared to men. This is due to the fact that, the society has developed an ideal, which exp...