Psychology – Biological Explanation of Eating Disorders

Psychology Essay The biologic undertake suggests that AN is due a physical mystify, suggesting it could be due to well-nighthing within the carcass or brain such as hypothalamus disfunction or an imbalance of neurotransmitters. The hypothalamus dysfunction conjecture would suggest that animals concord a ready weight which is correct for their body, if this weight should adjoin or decrease thus the body should make adjust manpowerts to regulate forage breathing in to their set weight.The hypothalamus is thought to remove quite a lot of condition oer our ingest demeanour, the lateral hypothalamus (LH) is considered to be the nutriment riff that makes an cutting-by- grimace range to feed whereas the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) is the satiety switch that makes an soulfulness backtrack feeding. Garfinkel and Gardner (1982) suggested that a delirious hypothalamus may be the cause of AN, they proposed that every intervention could winding to either the LH or V MH to be constantly aerated.In crop to rationalize AN it is most likely that when the LH is damaged and that the person never receives a steer (feeling hungry) to begin feeding, if the VMH were damaged consequently the individual would receive a constant star sign to eat so they would never stop feeding. This advocates the idea that AN might constitute a biological rendering, specifically brain dysfunction.Anand and Brobeck conducted an look into involving the rats, they erect that if the LH was damaged it could choose to aphagia (this is a failure to eat when hungry), this provides house for the idea that damage to the hypothalamus can lead to reduced feeding which is support for the biological climax of AN. However, at that place ar some concerns with this as the test was conducted with the use of animals so its hard to generalise the findings to homo.This is because humans and animals are biologically different so its hard to know if humans would respond in the same personal manner if their LH was damaged. Additional look into has shown us that when the VMH in rats is stimulated that it stops feeding, which again supports the suggestion that possible over activation of the VMH could result in reduced feeding. This look would in like manner support the biological score of AN as if an individual has damage to their hypothalamus then it could result in reduced feeding which would then result in striking weight loss, as seen in patroniseers of AN.However, this possibility is reductionist as it suggests that the only news report of AN is a biological reason, and it ignores other factors like things such as stress or sexual abuse which can both lead to AN. Another biological explanation of AN would be that there is an imbalance of serotonin, which is usually associated with depression and anxiety as disturbed levels of serotonin commence been found in AN puzzleers.It is also likely that ingest disorders happen due to high lev els of anxiety which is cerebrate with high levels of serotonin in the body. Bailer et al (1970) compared serotonin activity in convalescent anorexia suffers and healthy controls. They found significantly higher(prenominal) activity in the women that were recovering from anorexia, the highest levels found in those women with the highest anxiety levels. This also provides support for AN having a biological cause, in this case an imbalance of neurotransmitters.However, its difficult to essay cause and effect in Bailers research, this is because the women studied were already recovering from an eating disorder and so its insurmountable to know whether the imbalance of serotonin was the cause of the womens AN or whether the AN causes an imbalance of serotonin, so its hard to know whether or not there is a biological cause of AN with these findings. In addition to this the research is also gender biased, in this case its alpha biased as only women were used in this hire but its gener alising the study to men as well. Bailers research also raises the debate of determinism vs. ree will. The biological approach is settled so if an individual has an imbalance of serotonin they will then develop an eating disorder, however this is ignoring our free will as an individual that exercises regularly will over their eating this is noted in individuals who suffer from anxiety but dont develop AN. Finally there is the evolutionary approach which suggests that all our behaviours are adaptive, which fashion that the reason we do certain things is to support us survive in a certain way according to this possibleness AN is a behaviour which helps them survive.The evolutionary approach focuses on our ancestors, when weight loss and eating disorders werent a consideration and any weight loss would be a lack of food preferably than a desire for thinness. Usually when an individual begins to love weight physiological mechanisms activate in order to conserve naught and increase desires for food, however it would not have been adaptive for our ancestors to feel hunger as there may not have been much food available to them, so instead it would be adaptive to switch off the desire so that they could then find food in order to help our survival.Therefore many characteristics of AN can be considered adaptive to enable our ancestors to move to areas where there was more food rather than be preoccupied by looking for food in their current location. However, this theory doesnt explain the differences of AN between genders, as girls are more affected by AN than boys so if the behaviour was adapted then both men and women would be equally completed by this as both genders would have had to search for more food in other areas.An alternative approach to explaining how AN would come from the behaviour approach, which suggests AN is the result of learning rather than a biological explanation. This approach suggests that individuals suffer from AN because of reinforce ment, so they have witnessed slim volume (who become their role models) being rewarded for their behaviour so they imitate their behaviour in expectation of the same reward.