Editorial on the Research Topic. Extreme Eating Behaviours.

1 ABSTRACT The master thesis deals with the eating disorders and foreknowledge of high school physical education teachers of this disease. The thesis is divided in the theoretical part and the practical part. The theoretical part includes remarks from scientific literature and it is concerned with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and eating disorders not otherwise specified. Research was carried out by interviewing secondary teachers. The aim of research was to find out whether the pedagogues know what the eating disorders are, what are their potential causations, possibilities of prevention and competency of teachers for solving these disorders. The results indicate that physical education teachers have only basic knowledge about eating disorders. In view of the fact of these and other findings, a draft of activities for teachers who solve the eating disorders has been developed.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (Masters) -- The College of Saint Elizabeth, 2010. / Typescript. Available at The College of Saint Elizabeth - Office of Graduate Programs. "March 2010"

This diploma thesis describes eating habits of pupils at elementary school. It mainly focuses on results of bad eating habits. The first chapter describes eating habits of pupils. The second chapter characterizes the age group 13 to 16 years. The following chapters are focused on eating disorders (in general and also specifically on anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa), individual and social factors influencing the disorder and disease prevention. The practical part informs about the results of the research focused on pupils of the eighth and ninth grade at two elementary schools in Třebíč region. The aim of the research was to find out whether pupils are satisfied with their figures and what the main source of information about eating disorders is for them.

ABSTRACT Eating disorders (mental anorexia and bulimia) and obesity entail grave health, social and economic problems, and lead to detrimental health consequences, often irreversible consequences. Currently the disorders affect about 6% of population, with young girls particularly vulnerable and 16% of women obese. As the relevant surveys reveal, these figures are constantly on the rise. Apart from producing somatic symptoms, both the disorders, anorexia and bulimia, have been observed to bring about typical negative emotions and maladaptive cognition, first and foremost a distorted (negative) self-image focused on inappropriate perception of own body also known as the body image. The paper aims to find out and mutually compare features characteristic of the body image issues as they relate to the eating disorders and obesity / excessive weight. The paper is based on a survey combining qualitative and quantitative research strategies. To collect data, both strategies employed the technique of inquiry - the qualitative part relied on the theory of semi-structured interviews while the quantitative part used a questionnaire. The data thus acquired were processed by quantitative and qualitative procedures. Building on the previous Bachelor paper intended to map the issues of body image in persons with eating disorders, this paper expands the previous survey set of women suffering the condition and adds a new set of obese females. Results of the qualitative part of the survey brought about hypotheses on how the mentioned disorders affected the body image. The quantitative part of the survey revealed similar characteristics in the perceived body image in both the sets, but disclosed also some differences. Significant differences were found when the body image of the diseased persons was compared with that encountered in healthy population. This paper can boost the awareness of this subject in lay public but also in professional community, primarily where psychotherapy and prevention are regarded.

The presented thesis deals with problems of eating disorders (hereinafter abbreviated to EDs). The theoretical framework is the Social Construction of Reality; a concept saying that the individual perceives reality - as a phenomenon formed and determined socially - in the way it is presented by the "power structures" of the society. The thesis pays special attention to the aetiology of these disorders, laying emphasis on family factors. The aim of the thesis refers to one of the topics resulting from my Bachelor thesis, when it appeared worthwhile to work up in detail the problem of subjectively seen factors substantial for onset of EDs. Thus the aim of the thesis was to map which factors the persons suffering from EDs as well as members of their families consider to be significant for onset of the disease - either their own or their daughter´s /sister´s on one hand and EDs generally on the other hand - and what led them to take their stand, in so doing two ranges of time were mapped. The set of persons under review was represented by the same respondents as in case of research for the Bachelor thesis. In order to ensure mapping of the above-mentioned problem in the most possible complex way, a qualitative research strategy was chosen. The necessary data was obtained by employing the technique of deep semi-structured interviews, then the data was processed using qualitative analysis of the respondents´ statements. Part of the research work was also confrontation of the collected and processed data with specialised resources. On the basis of the results of our research it is evident that the factor causing onset and development of the respondents´ or their daughter´s/sister´s EDs mentioned most often is family background. Unlike the Bachelor thesis, this factor was rather mentioned as one of many; it is not so dominant any longer. This may be explained by the fact that the patients spoke about their situations under the influence of other factors that experts had been emphasising. As for EDs generally, then the respondents mostly mentioned desire to be slim, which, however, has now substantially fallen into the shade. This may be explained by the respondents´ experience with EDs. It may be said that in taking their standpoints, family members were much more influenced by information from specialised resources than the persons suffering from EDs themselves, who mostly took their stand on the basis of their own conviction. Our research shows that for persons suffering from EDs, family background was not a source of information on the problem of these disorders. The research pointed out the importance of engaging the family in solving the problem of EDs as well as the necessity of individual approach to each case of this disease. The presented thesis may be a helpful source of information not only for people interested in the problem of EDs; it may also serve as materials for instruction in the medical social field, and last but not least it can be used to bring more information to the general public.

The Different Faces of Bulimia is a research project that has represented a journey. It began with the question “How do females experience bulimia as part of their lives?” and moved through rooms where different ‘faces’, or theories on bulimia, were met with and interviewed. There appear to exist, in literature concerning bulimia, five dominant faces on the matter. These are the Psychopathology face, the Psychoanalytic face, the Cognitive-behavioural face, the Cyberspace face, and the Narrative face. Each of these appeared to offer an individual and different meaning of bulimia. The research extended to include the sixth and seventh faces of C and L, two women who live with bulimia in their own lives, and the meaning that they attach to it. They represented the individual faces that existed in human interaction and not in the words of books, magazines, or computer screens. The meaning of bulimia in C and L’s lives was searched for in interviews with both women that were audio-recorded and transcribed. The analysis of these was done in line with narrative methodology which holds that our experience is constructed in collaboration with history (or past experience) and culture. Both history and culture is assumed to inform and co-author the narratives of bulimia in C and L lives, as well in the lives of the five dominant faces explored in this research. The analysis took the form of searching for the meaning that C and L attach to bulimia. The five dominant literary faces also became the history and culture that one supposes women living with bulimia to co-exist with, and their effect on their personal narratives became important. That is, whether the dominant literary faces had an effect on the stories told by the faces of these two women. In line with narrative methodology, this research’s aim was not to provide one final answer or conclusion to the research question, but rather to provide an analysis of the individual meanings contained in each face. It has, in effect, added another face of bulimia in it’s search for what bulimia means. / Dissertation (MA (Counselling Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Psychology / MA / unrestricted

La crise de boulimie est vécue comme une perte de contrôle par les patientes atteint de boulimie (BN), d’anorexie avec crise de boulimie (ANB) et d’hyperphagie boulimique. Si ces patientes présentent effectivement des performances dégradées aux tâches neuropsychologiques évaluant les mécanismes du contrôle cognitif modulant la tendance à s’engager dans des actions sans prendre en compte leurs conséquences, la méthodologie employée ne permet pas de séparer les mécanismes propres à la crise de boulimie de ceux plus généraux du trouble. La comparaison des performances à une batterie de tâches évaluant les différents mécanismes du contrôle cognitif, de patientes BN, ANB, anorexiques restrictives avec des sujets sains en conditions alimentaire et neutre révèle que les crises de boulimie seraient liées à un contrôle cognitif perturbé par un surplus attentionnel vers les stimuli alimentaires lors de la réalisation de tâches intuitives, déséquilibrant la modulation de ce contrôle sur la tendance générale à choisir des options risquées ou immédiates explicites. En modifiant la séquence d’ingestion des aliments au cours de la crise de boulimie pour augmenter leurs compétences de contrôle faisant défaut en situation alimentaire, des patientes répondant faiblement à la thérapie comportementale et cognitive ont diminué spontanément de 44% les quantités ingérées et la moitié d’entre elles a guéri. Si ces résultats nécessitent confirmation par une étude en imagerie fonctionnelle, ils montrent l’utilité de modéliser finement les mécanismes de traitement automatique de l’information pour améliorer les thérapies actuelles / Binge eating episodes are experienced by bulimic (BN), anorexic binging subtype (ANB) and binge eating disorder (BED) patients as periods of loss of control. This feeling is corroborated by the impaired behavioral performances to neuropsychological tasks assessing cognitive control but these results do not allow separating the mechanisms that are specific to the binge from those related to the whole psychopathology of the disorder. The goal of this thesis is to identify these mechanisms, to build a model explaining the occurrence of binges and to design and test a new behavioral intervention to treat directly binges. BN, ANB and anorexic restrictive subtype patients as well as matched controls underwent a battery of neuropsychological tasks performed in food and neutral conditions. Comparison of performances between the two conditions exhibited an impairment in food condition of intuitive mechanisms of cognitive control due to a higher attention paid to food stimuli. This results in an unbalanced modulation of the general trend to choose risky or immediate options when explicitly mentioned. Another group of ANB, BN and BED patients modified the sequence of ingestion of foods during the binge in order to train themselves to recruit the impaired mechanisms of cognitive control identified at the previous step. They experienced a spontaneous reduction of 44% of food intake during binges and half of them recovered from binges. While these results need to be confirmed by a functional neuroimaging study, they stress the importance of modeling precisely the instantaneous automated mechanisms that mediate behavior in order to improve current therapies

Die vorliegende Arbeit entwickelt einen Vorschlag für einen neuen, kompakteren Fragebogen mit dem Akronym „BaFEK-45“ zur Diagnostik von Essstörungen, der auf einer statistischen Analyse von Daten aus fünf bereits etablierten Fragebogen (ANIS, EAT – 26, FBeK, EDI – 2, EDES) mit einer Gesamtzahl von 231 Items basiert. Dabei wurden die Antworten von Patientinnen aus den 1990er- und 2000er-Jahren der Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie, Psychotherapie und Psychosomatik des Kindes- und Jugendalters der Universität Leipzig ausgewertet. Auf Grundlage zweier „Signalfragen“ zu Ess-Anfällen wurden die Fragebogen-Serien in drei Gruppen (anorektisch, bulimisch und grenzwertig) eingeteilt, daraufhin konnte eine Analyse zu den Unterschieden im Antwortverhalten zwischen eben diesen Gruppe vorgenommen werden. Nach einem auf dieser Analyse basierenden Auswahlverfahren wurden die verbliebenen Items einer mehrstufigen Faktorenanalyse und kritischen inhaltlichen Differenzierung unterzogen. An deren Ende steht der o.g. Vorschlag eines neuen Diagnostikinstruments, das sich aus 45 Fragen in fünf Skalen zusammensetzt.