Essay on P3 Explain specific health psychology issues

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P3 Explain specific health psychology issues
Eating disorders are characterised by an abnormal attitude towards food that causes an individual to change their eating habits and their behaviour. There are several types of eating disorders that can effect an individual physically, psychologically and socially. The two eating disorders which I will be discussing is anorexia and bulimia.

Anorexia is an eating disorder and a mental health condition which can be life-threatening. Anorexia is an irrational fear of gaining weight, it typically involves excessive weight loss and usually occurs more in females than in males.
There are four clinical characteristics of individuals with anorexia which are-
An individual behavioural symptoms …show more content…
For example when they child cries to the mother they might feed it, believing it to be hungry and when its cries due to hunger she may comfort it believing it may be anxious. This then confused the child about their own internal statue and their needs. It makes them feel dependent on others.
This theory can’t explain the difference in anorexia to girls to boys and why there’s more anorexia in society these days.
The Cognitive Approach
This approach focuses on “cognitive biases”. Cognitive biases are tendencies in which individuals think in certain ways, they can lead to systematic deviations for a standard of rationality or good judgement. In this instance individuals who are anorexic tend to think they are in fact 20% bigger than what they are. Mckenzie et al (1993) interview female eating disorders patients and a control group about their body weight, shape and ideals and got them to estimate their own size in relation to other women. They found-
When the women were asked to compare themselves with control who were the same size, ED patients tended to overestimate their own body.
When asked to indicate their ideal body shape/weight, ED patients chose a weight/shape significantly lighter/thinner than the control group.
The participants were then given a chocolate bar and a soft drink to consume. Following this they were asked to re-estimate their body weight/shape. The ED patients judged
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