Depression and Eating Disorders
By: Carla Hoyt
Systems affected by Depression and Eating Disorders
How the central nervous system and the digestive system works properly
How Depression can lead into an eating disorder
- Depression or eating disorders could hereditary (meaning it carries through your genetics)
- Your lifestyle can effect it (i.e. people making fun of your physical appearance, or you putting yourself down because you're bigger or smaller than your friends)
- Also, the media in this day in age has a HUGE impact on young girls. Seeing all the skinny models and girls with thigh gaps.
The target population for people who can get depression or an eating disorders
A doctor can determine if someone has depression by:
- The patient has been getting little or no sleep
- Feeling useless
- Having little or no interest in activities
- Being in an irritable mood
- Extreme weight loss or gain
A doctor can determine if someone has an eating disorder by:
- Having negative feelings
- Major weight loss or gain
- Always feeling fatigued
- Loss of ambition
Signs and symptoms of depression
- Always being in an irritable mood
- Having little or no interest in activities
- Serious loss or gain in weight
- Change in sleep schedule
- Little or no sleep
- Challenging to focus on things
- Always feeling guilty, insignificant, or useless
- Having suicidal thoughts
- Self harm
Some signs and symptoms of developing an eating disorder
- Constantly weighing yourself
- Telling false stories about eating
- Not eating in front of your peers or any type of people
- Not attending meals
- Not eating one day and eating a lot the next day
- Over exercising
- Purging vomiting your food or using laxatives once in a while
Treatment For depression and eating disorders
You can always get help when you are depressed or if you have an eating disorder, but it may not be easy.
- You can talk to a psychiatrist, psychologist, or any type of therapist. They can talk to you and help you get over some negative thoughts.
- The doctors can give you medication to make you happy, therapists often encourage bulimic patients to take medication and go to therapy.
- People with eating disorders can also keep what they call a food journal to help keep track of what they eat and so they can build off or improve upon what healthy things they eat.
What is the prognosis for depression?
It really depends if you get help or not. Depression does NOT go away on its own. If you don’t get help, your situation can worsen. If you do get help, you can slowly get better and you can start living your life normally or improve it.
What is the prognosis for an eating disorder?
What connection do you have with eating disorders or depression?
I have had and have friends that have depression and I wanted a better understanding so I can help them through it.
I watch a show on TV about a hospital where one of the main characters has a type of eating disorder called anorexia and the topic seemed interesting to me.
Top 16 most depressed states in the U.S
Works Cited
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"Eating Disorders and Depression: How They're Related." WebMD. WebMD, 16 July 2010. Web. 18 Jan. 2015.
Kowalski, Kathiam M. "Dealing with Depression -- beyond the Blues." Current Health Dec. 1999: n. pag. EBSCO. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.
Miller, Michael Craig. "Sad Brain, Happy Brain." Newsweek 22 Sept. 2008: 50-56. EBSCO. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.
Scholastic Choices. "FYI: Eating Disorders." Scholastic Choices. N.p., Apr. 2002. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.
St. Paul, Linda Haugen, and Alan Iskra Morgantown. "Forest Health Protection—Dutch Wingert, Pat, Barbara Kantrowitz, Brain Braiker, Karen Springen, and Ellise Pierce. "YOUNG AND DEPRESSED." Newsweek 10 July 2002: n. pag. EBSCO. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.
Wysong, Pippa. "Dark Moods." Current Health Dec. 2005: 14-17. EBSCO. Web. 1 Jan. 2015.