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Eating Disorders

Explore how cognitive distortions play a key role in eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. Faulty thinking processes, body misperceptions, and irrational beliefs about food drive these disorders. Recognize common cognitive errors and biases, such as all-or-nothing thinking and overgeneralizing, that contribute to maintaining EDs. Learn about studies illustrating how individuals with EDs perceive their bodies and ideal weights, leading to unrealistic body ideals. Discover why minor eating-related events trigger fear of weight gain in ED patients.

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Eating Disorders

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  1. Eating Disorders www.psychlotron.org.uk • Cognitive model • Psychological disorders are the result of faulty or maladaptive thinking processes • Anorexia and bulimia may involve misperception of the body • They will also involve faulty reasoning about the self, the body and food/eating

  2. Cognitive Distortions in EDs www.psychlotron.org.uk • Faulty thinking in EDS typically includes: • Misperceiving the body as overweight when it is actually underweight • Basing feelings of self worth unduly on physical appearance • Basing sense of self on control over eating/ED symptoms • Irrational/mistaken beliefs about food/fat/dieting behaviours

  3. Cognitive Errors in EDs www.psychlotron.org.uk • All or nothing thinking • “I ate one biscuit…that’s blown everything!” • Overgeneralising • “If I fail at controlling my eating I fail in life.” • Magnifying/minimising • “My weight loss isn’t serious.” • Magical thinking • “If I reach size 8 then my life will be perfect.”

  4. Cognitive Errors in EDs www.psychlotron.org.uk • Fallon & Rozin (1985) • Male & female students rated themselves on current and ideal body shape • Compared to males, females rated themselves as heavier than what was attractive, and much heavier than their ideal

  5. Cognitive Errors in EDs www.psychlotron.org.uk • McKenzie et al (1993) • Female ED patients overestimated their own body size in relation to other women • They judged their ideal weight to be lower than comparable non-ED patients • Following a sugary snack, they judged their body size to have increased. Controls did not.

  6. Cognitive Errors in EDs www.psychlotron.org.uk • Women are generally more dissatisfied than men with their bodies • ED patients misperceive their own bodies and have more unrealistic body ideals • In ED patients, minor events related to eating activate fear of weight gain

  7. The Cognitive Model www.psychlotron.org.uk • AN and BN are certainly associated with biases and distortions in thinking • However, most women are dissatisfied with their bodies, not all of them develop EDs • A good account of what helps to maintain EDS, but not of what causes them in the first place.

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