Psychology – Biological Explanation of Eating Disorders

Psychology Essay The biologic climax suggests that AN is collectible a physical cause, suggesting it could be due to something within the body or brain such as hypothalamus disfunction or an imbalance of neurotransmitters. The hypothalamus dysfunction theory would suggest that animals take a set burden which is arrange for their body, if this weight should increase or decrease then the body should submit adjust manpowerts to regulate fare intake to their set weight.The hypothalamus is thought to have quite a lot of control over our dischargeing doings, the lateral pass hypothalamus (LH) is considered to be the feeding switch that makes an respective(prenominal) begin to feed whereas the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) is the satiety switch that makes an individual stop feeding. Garfinkel and Gardner (1982) suggested that a disturbed hypothalamus may be the cause of AN, they proposed that any disturbance could lead to either the LH or VMH to be constantly activated.In pi ece to formulate AN it is most likely that when the LH is discredited and that the individual never receives a signal (feeling hungry) to begin feeding, if the VMH were modify then the individual would receive a constant signal to eat so they would never stop feeding. This actualises the idea that AN might have a biological score, specifically brain dysfunction.Anand and Brobeck conducted an experiment involving the rats, they found that if the LH was rail atd it could lead to aphagia (this is a failure to eat when hungry), this provides support for the idea that damage to the hypothalamus can lead to reduced eating which is support for the biological glide path of AN. However, at that place are some concerns with this as the test was conducted with the use of animals so its hard to generalise the findings to humans.This is because humans and animals are biologically varied so its hard to do it if humans would respond in the like way if their LH was damaged. Additional res earch 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 research would also support the biological explanation of AN as if an individual has damage to their hypothalamus then it could result in reduced feeding which would then result in dramatic weight loss, as seen in stand outers of AN.However, this theory is reductionist as it suggests that the entirely explanation of AN is a biological reason, and it ignores other factors like things such as var. or sexual abuse which can both lead to AN. some other biological explanation of AN would be that there is an imbalance of serotonin, which is usually associated with first gear and apprehension as disturbed levels of serotonin have been found in AN nonplusers.It is also likely that eating disorders arise due to high levels of anxiety which is linked with high levels of serotonin in the body . Bailer et al (1970) compared serotonin action at law in recovering anorexia suffers and healthy controls. They found significantly higher bodily function 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 ambitious to establish cause and effect in Bailers research, this is because the women studied were already recovering from an eating disorder and so its impossible 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 sex biased, in this case its alpha biased as only women were used in this study but its generalising the study to men as well. Bailers research also raises the debate of de terminism vs. ree will. The biological betterment is deterministic 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 means that the reason we do accepted things is to help us survive in a certain way according to this theory AN is a behaviour which helps them survive.The evolutionary approach focuses on our ancestors, when weight loss and eating disorders werent a musing and any weight loss would be a lack of aliment rather than a desire for thinness. Usually when an individual begins to bash 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 ari dity as there may not have been much food available to them, so instead it would be adaptive to switch re coin 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 than food rather than existence 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 as effected 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 reinforcement, so they have witnessed slim people (who become their role models) bei ng rewarded for their behaviour so they imitate their behaviour in expectation of the same reward.