Literature Review: Eating disorders in children, adolescents and adults: Risk factors, causal pathways and outcomes.

A Literature Review
Eating disorders in children, adolescents and adults: Risk factors, causal pathways and outcomes.

Introduction

Eating disorders in children today are reaching epidemic proportions. This assignment will explore the issues surrounding childhood obesity, the psychological effects, social effects, associated health risks, the impact it has on adult life and what we can do combat this problem. To assist in this exploration, references and the results of the field research conducted will be used to highlight these areas.

The statistics are really quite alarming. According to Peregrin (2001), 11%, an incredible 4.7 million children and adolescents in the United States are deemed as ‘seriously overweight’. Numerous theorists believe that eating disorders stem from the “early interactions with caretakers” forming their “foundations for beliefs, attitudes, and expectations about the self” (Rabinor 1994, p. 272). Caretakers constituting all those w...