Chapter 14 – Feeding and Eating Disorders
How eating patterns develop
Normal development and developmental risk factors
Approximately 1 in 4 children (under age 12) are describes as picky eaters by their parents.
• More common among girls than boys
• Beginning around age 9, girls are more anxious than boys about losing weight.
Societal norms and media’s focus on thinness and attractiveness is partly to blame for weight-
consciousness among pre-teen girls.
Drive for thinness: a motivational variable underlying dieting and body image, among young
females in particular, whereby the individual believes that losing more weight is the answer to
overcoming her troubles and achieving success.
à Increases the risk of an eating disorder
Disturbed eating attitudes: a person’s belief that cultural standards for attractiveness, body
image, and social acceptance are closely tied to the ability to control one’s diet and weight again.
Weight concerns and body image appear to be significantly related to the onset of eating
problems and eating disorders during adolescence.
• Regular family meals may function as a protective factor against eating disorders.
Research has shown consistently that anorexia and bulimia typically occur during adolescence
and that onset thereafter is rare.
• Girls: place greater emphasis on self-perceptions of physical appearance and they
frequently feel fat and unattractive.
• Boys: see themselves in a more positive light with respect to achievement, academic
aspirations, self-assertion, and body image.
Chronic dieting seems strongly related to gender and developmental factors.
• Chronic dieters: someone who continuously remains on a diet or who diets sporadically
more than 10 times during the year.
o 10% girls and only 2% boys
Dieting can lead to overeating, because reducing caloric intake reduces a person’s metabolic
rate, which allows fat to remain in the cells so that weight loss is impeded. This sets the stage for
a vicious cycle of increased commitment to dieting and vulnerability to binge eating.
Purging: behavior aimed at ridding the body of consumed food, including self-induced vomiting
and the misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas. This is followed by disgust and self-
recrimination.
Adolescents with an eating disorder may be deprived of key social, emotional, and biological
development processes that normally develop during this period.
Biological regulators
Normal patterns of eating and growth, as well as the disorders based on disturbances in these
patterns, are influences by physical and psychological processes that continuously interact.
Metabolic rate: the body’s balance of energy expenditure. Metabolic rate is determined by
genetic and physiological makeup, along with eating and exercise habits.
Set point: a comfortable range of body weight that the body tries to ‘defend’ and maintain.
, • If fat levels decrease below the set point, the brain (hypothalamus) compensated by
slowing metabolism and by lowering the body temperature to conserve energy.
• When gaining too much the body increases metabolism and raises the body temperature
in an effort to burn off extra calories.
Most important hormonal determinants of growth rate during childhood are the growth
hormone (GH) and the thyroid hormone.
• 50-75% of GH production occurs during the onset of deep sleep in children and young
adults.
• Release of GH by the pituitary gland is determined by the hypothalamus, the limbic
cortex and the amygdala (involved in emotional sensation and response). Hypothalamus
senses the need to release more/less GH. To do this, the hypothalamus releases 2
controlling hormones that exert opposite effects:
o The growth hormone-inhibiting factor: inhibits GH response to internal signals of
hunger à stop eating.
o The growth hormone-releasing factor: tells the body when, how, and where to
grow by releasing GH.
How Eating Patterns Develop – Section Summary
- Eating problems are common among children.
- Normal concerns about weight and appearance can be influenced by parents and peers,
sometimes resulting in eating disturbances.
- Early eating habits, attitudes, and behaviors that place undue concern of body image and a drive
for thinness increase the risk of eating disorders.
- Increased dieting and weight concerns often accompany the transition into adolescence,
especially for girls, which can lead to the emergence of unhealthy eating patterns.
- Attempts to reduce weight by dieting can lead to a vicious cycle of weight loss and weight gain.
Chronic dieting is associated with the onset of adolescent eating disorders.
- Normal patterns of eating and growth, as well as the later emergence of eating disorders, are
influenced by biological processes such as one’s metabolic rate and set point.
Obesity
Approximately 1 in 6 children and adolescents (2-19 years) in North America are obese.
Childhood obesity: a chronic medical condition characterized by an excessive accumulation of
body fat relative to gender- and age-based norms.
• The set point of persons with obesity are elevated.
• Obesity is defined in terms of a body mass index (BMI). A childhood BMI between the 85th
and 95th percentiles is considered overweight.
Obesity is not a mental disorder, but it can affect a child’s psychological and physical
development. Obese children and adolescents are 5 times more likely than healthy children to
experience an impaired quality of life, similar to children with cancer.
Obesity during infancy and obesity during later childhood are not strongly related, but
childhood-onset obesity is more likely to persist into adolescence and adulthood.
• Individuals with obesity risk many health concerns, like cardiovascular problems,
diabetes, and elevated cholesterol and triglycerides.
• Obesity if a major factor in reducing life expectancy in Western societies.
Heritability accounts for a substantial proportion of the variance in obesity, but other individual
and family-related factors, like dietary and lifestyle preferences also play a role.
How eating patterns develop
Normal development and developmental risk factors
Approximately 1 in 4 children (under age 12) are describes as picky eaters by their parents.
• More common among girls than boys
• Beginning around age 9, girls are more anxious than boys about losing weight.
Societal norms and media’s focus on thinness and attractiveness is partly to blame for weight-
consciousness among pre-teen girls.
Drive for thinness: a motivational variable underlying dieting and body image, among young
females in particular, whereby the individual believes that losing more weight is the answer to
overcoming her troubles and achieving success.
à Increases the risk of an eating disorder
Disturbed eating attitudes: a person’s belief that cultural standards for attractiveness, body
image, and social acceptance are closely tied to the ability to control one’s diet and weight again.
Weight concerns and body image appear to be significantly related to the onset of eating
problems and eating disorders during adolescence.
• Regular family meals may function as a protective factor against eating disorders.
Research has shown consistently that anorexia and bulimia typically occur during adolescence
and that onset thereafter is rare.
• Girls: place greater emphasis on self-perceptions of physical appearance and they
frequently feel fat and unattractive.
• Boys: see themselves in a more positive light with respect to achievement, academic
aspirations, self-assertion, and body image.
Chronic dieting seems strongly related to gender and developmental factors.
• Chronic dieters: someone who continuously remains on a diet or who diets sporadically
more than 10 times during the year.
o 10% girls and only 2% boys
Dieting can lead to overeating, because reducing caloric intake reduces a person’s metabolic
rate, which allows fat to remain in the cells so that weight loss is impeded. This sets the stage for
a vicious cycle of increased commitment to dieting and vulnerability to binge eating.
Purging: behavior aimed at ridding the body of consumed food, including self-induced vomiting
and the misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas. This is followed by disgust and self-
recrimination.
Adolescents with an eating disorder may be deprived of key social, emotional, and biological
development processes that normally develop during this period.
Biological regulators
Normal patterns of eating and growth, as well as the disorders based on disturbances in these
patterns, are influences by physical and psychological processes that continuously interact.
Metabolic rate: the body’s balance of energy expenditure. Metabolic rate is determined by
genetic and physiological makeup, along with eating and exercise habits.
Set point: a comfortable range of body weight that the body tries to ‘defend’ and maintain.
, • If fat levels decrease below the set point, the brain (hypothalamus) compensated by
slowing metabolism and by lowering the body temperature to conserve energy.
• When gaining too much the body increases metabolism and raises the body temperature
in an effort to burn off extra calories.
Most important hormonal determinants of growth rate during childhood are the growth
hormone (GH) and the thyroid hormone.
• 50-75% of GH production occurs during the onset of deep sleep in children and young
adults.
• Release of GH by the pituitary gland is determined by the hypothalamus, the limbic
cortex and the amygdala (involved in emotional sensation and response). Hypothalamus
senses the need to release more/less GH. To do this, the hypothalamus releases 2
controlling hormones that exert opposite effects:
o The growth hormone-inhibiting factor: inhibits GH response to internal signals of
hunger à stop eating.
o The growth hormone-releasing factor: tells the body when, how, and where to
grow by releasing GH.
How Eating Patterns Develop – Section Summary
- Eating problems are common among children.
- Normal concerns about weight and appearance can be influenced by parents and peers,
sometimes resulting in eating disturbances.
- Early eating habits, attitudes, and behaviors that place undue concern of body image and a drive
for thinness increase the risk of eating disorders.
- Increased dieting and weight concerns often accompany the transition into adolescence,
especially for girls, which can lead to the emergence of unhealthy eating patterns.
- Attempts to reduce weight by dieting can lead to a vicious cycle of weight loss and weight gain.
Chronic dieting is associated with the onset of adolescent eating disorders.
- Normal patterns of eating and growth, as well as the later emergence of eating disorders, are
influenced by biological processes such as one’s metabolic rate and set point.
Obesity
Approximately 1 in 6 children and adolescents (2-19 years) in North America are obese.
Childhood obesity: a chronic medical condition characterized by an excessive accumulation of
body fat relative to gender- and age-based norms.
• The set point of persons with obesity are elevated.
• Obesity is defined in terms of a body mass index (BMI). A childhood BMI between the 85th
and 95th percentiles is considered overweight.
Obesity is not a mental disorder, but it can affect a child’s psychological and physical
development. Obese children and adolescents are 5 times more likely than healthy children to
experience an impaired quality of life, similar to children with cancer.
Obesity during infancy and obesity during later childhood are not strongly related, but
childhood-onset obesity is more likely to persist into adolescence and adulthood.
• Individuals with obesity risk many health concerns, like cardiovascular problems,
diabetes, and elevated cholesterol and triglycerides.
• Obesity if a major factor in reducing life expectancy in Western societies.
Heritability accounts for a substantial proportion of the variance in obesity, but other individual
and family-related factors, like dietary and lifestyle preferences also play a role.
