Psychology anorexia in men

Running head: psychology anorexia in men
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Psychology is the study of the way people and animals feel, believe, study and discern. It is a discipline based on hypothesis and interpretations. Currently, it involves the gathering of information and changing them into psychological hypothesis to clarify the behavior of human beings and even use the information to foretell and manipulate their behavior in future. There are different classifications of psychology. I will mainly focus on anorexia in males. Anorexia is a syndrome that can have power over the brainpower. It usually occurs in ladies more than men, especially young girls. Studies about anorexia in males have not really been addressed so much. There are a number of misunderstandings concerning male eating disorders which has kept men from acquiring treatment and often find themselves discriminated from treatment on the basis of femininity. Due to the myth that anorexia is a ladies illness, many men think it can not affect them. They do not often admit to have a girl’s illness and therefore don’t see any need of seeking treatment from specialized professionals. Astoundingly, men tend to ignore asking for help with a notion that they have been in control of their lives from birth. Being unable to control life is seen as a weakness in men. Usually, men are not supposed to convey their way of thinking .As a result of anorexia men tend to engage themselves in a disordered eating habits in order to manage the uncomfortable thoughts. When they seek specialized assistance, they are not often treated. Response is often unclear from most medical institutions, because females and males receive different treatments due to their varied uncertainties and prospect about their body figure. Anorexia is less noticeable in men than in women physically because men can still have muscle mass when in anorexic conditions. This makes anorexia very dangerous in men since they usually lose more muscle unlike women who lose fats in their early stages. This research paper describes the specific characteristics of the male anorexia that been disregarded by the mental health specialists leading to under identification and negligence of this illness. The paper will also classify distinctiveness of the male anorexics and get an elaborate explanation for anorexia in males.
Anorexia is often associated with a number of mental and health concerns ranging from a little harm to lethal. Deaths often result from anorexia. These deaths are as a result of self-starvation and suicide. If people can know the nature, cause and medications of eating problems, then an individual can as well know more about the field of old psychotherapy, intellectual matters and in-house medication since these problems have an effect on every organ of the body according to Anderson(1990).There were about seven million and one million reported cases of eating problems in the US in accordance to the National Association of Anorexia Disorders and Associated Disorders(1994).Males account for about half a million of the eating disorders every year which is around 5% to 10%.Despite the figure being small it shouldn’t be ignored as 5% to 10% of the people makes up a large number of people(Arbetter, 1994).Anorexia is well thought-out to be subjective to cultural forces, this anomaly may be changed as the cultural forces changes. These alterations can impact the rate of the problem, the times of its inception, the worldwide characteristics or the particular conditions of the problem. The effects of social and cultural influences are of great concern to ensure the identification of the causes and how it develops, and to enlighten ways of care (Dorian and Garfinkel, 1999).
Many children, teenagers and grown-ups are becoming so preoccupied with the body figure and due to the way they are perceived by others. Dissatisfaction with body figure is predominant among adolescents and adolescent males often carry out excessive exercises to lose weight, while ladies on the other hand go for dieting behaviors (Paxton et al., 1991).Studies also show that females are preoccupied with weight and hence the eating problem resulting to the figures shown in the magazines, television, gorgeous pageants and in the pictures. Men are not also left behind by the media, according to Pope (1999), ha says that the changing form of men for the last ten years and the way the muscle-bound play figures are displayed can be one of the factors leading to the increased problem of boy form trouble in men. It is therefore necessary for health specialists, counselors, instructors and community health specialists to become familiar with the required expertise to recognize, treat, and avert anorexia in both men and women.
Currently it is approximated that ten percent of all people with Anorexia are Men. Crisp (1996) says that this figure is high. He says that it is about two percent on the higher side. The definition of anorexia according to the DSM-IV does not clearly explain the signs in men. According to Anderson (1990), the identification of men with eating anomalies is a simple procedure, but as with appendicitis, one has to foremost consider of it as achievable. He continues to say one of most common characteristics used to identify anorexia is amenorrhea but there is no equivalent measure for men. Braun (1997) also says that though amenorrhea is known as one of the main indicative signs for anorexia in women, there is no equivalent standard for men. The indicative characteristic can therefore be one of the reasons for the misunderstanding of the illness in men. Amenorrhea is not experienced by men while its one of the major signs that the health specialists use to identify anorexia disorder. The way of identifying anorexia according to DSM_IV (1994) is the presence of amenorrhea in women but there is no equivalent measure for men. This further suggests that there is gender partiality in the definition of anorexia. To some degree this might affect the health specialists’ interpretation of this illness that it affects only women. When men undergo self-starvation and engage in rigorous physical exercise, they are likely to experience endocrine imbalance as shown by a drop in testosterone level. This is not easy to evaluate in interview with grown-up men. Sincere response may not be received from the men concerning their sexual drive by counselors. The predominance, etiology and essential distinctiveness that are related to eating problems are misunderstood by the mental specialists and health specialists (Hsu, 1990).This disagreement accounts for the difficulty in the identification of men with eating problems. Avo...