Eating behavior is controlled by a complex process that aims at maintaining homeostasis. Eating provides the body with fuel to maintain body temperature and essential elements to grow and repair tissues. Eating is controlled by hunger, a feeling of misbalance, and satiety, a feeling of equilibrium. There are several types of hunger controlled by different organs. The first two types of hunger, glucoprivic and lipoprivic, are controlled by the liver. When the liver detects a depletion of glucose or fatty acids supply, the vagus nerve carries the signal from the liver to the NST in the medulla. Information about the amount of glucose and fatty acids s relayed from the NST to the arcuate nucleus in the hypothalamus. The arcuate nucleus sends neurons to the PVN and the lateral hypothalamus to control both metabolism and feeding. The third signal for hunger is ghrelin, “a hormone that is synthesized in the stomach and released into the bloodstream as the stomach empties during fasting” (Garrett & Hough, 2018, p. 257). When a person feels full, hormones, such as cholecystokinin (CCK) and peptide YY3–36 (PYY), are released to promote the feeling of satiety and suppress the appetite. Therefore, reduction of calorie intake may not be an effective strategy to promote weight loss, as the body will encourage regaining weight by reducing metabolic rate and increasing calorie demand.
Bulimia is a dangerous eating disorder that is caused by repeated bingeing and purging. Even though bulimia patients are mostly normal weight, they fight hunger, as their ghrelin levels are lower in comparison with healthy people, and their PYY levels do not rise as much following a meal (Garrett & Hough, 2018). The neurological reasons behind the process are alteration in brain chemicals. According to Karges (2015), altered serotonin levels may lead to dysregulation of mood, appetite, and impulse control in bulimia. Current treatment methods of bulimia include nutritional counseling, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), interpersonal therapy, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) (Harvard Health Publishing, 2009). Considering that the causes of bulimia are both psychological and neurological, I suggest using a combination of CBT and SSRI to regulate serotonin levels and learn coping mechanisms to fight bulimia.
Eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, are often caused by social pressure from friends and family to maintain a particular body image. Multiple research has shown that greater use of social media websites is associated with the development of eating disorders (McLean, Wertheim, Masters, & Paxton, 2017). Therefore, an adequate strategy to reduce the amount of pressure put on teenagers is to promote social media literacy. According to McLean et al. (2017), social media literacy interventions are associated with decreased susceptibility to eating disorders.
References
Garrett, B., & Hough, G. (2018). Brain and behavior: An introduction to behavioral neuroscience (5th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Harvard Health Publishing. (2009). Treating bulimia nervosa. Web.
Karges, C. (2015). Bulimia and the brain: How is neurobiology a factor? Web.
McLean, S. A., Wertheim, E. H., Masters, J., & Paxton, S. J. (2017). A pilot evaluation of a social media literacy intervention to reduce risk factors for eating disorders. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 50(7), 847-851.