Cognitive Explanation

• The symptoms of anorexia like misperceiving weight, basing all self-esteem on body image and irrational beliefs can all link back to the thought processes of a person. This is where the cognitive explanation of anorexia comes in as it’s been suggested that when an individual has an eating disorder like anorexia, their thought processes put much more emphasis on their perception and over concern of weight, body shape and what they eat.
• Some psychologists, such as Minuchin (78) have suggested this way of thinking can develop in situations as a means of preventing conflict within family by diverting the attention onto them, which could explain why those in stressful situations may be more prone to suffering from anorexia.

The distortions in thinking can show in different ways, such as reasoning errors and irrational ideas that just aren’t true (‘people will love me if I’m thin’)
These thinking patterns can come from what many people with ED have described as the ‘ED Voice’, which is a continuous dialogue of accusatory and over-criticising thoughts. The voice is difficult to separate from rational thought as it’s in the same voice of that of your conscious. This isn’t hearing voices though, it acts as a speaker through which all the negative thoughts about everything to do with body image and weight is funnelled through.  These are inaccurate and self-critical but are seen as fact and subconsciously affect people’s perceptions and behaviours.

The thought distortion can manifest in different ways and have different effects on different people. The main cognitive errors those with anorexia suffer from are:

·         Although stressful situations could be a valid explanation for developing anorexia, it doesn’t account for those who are in seemingly stable situations, also Lovell et al (1997) found that people who had recovered from anorexia nervosa two years earlier still had distorted body images and odd views about food, therefore it seems that it wouldn’t be just a situational thing if it’s still affecting them later on.

·         It’s questionable whether the anorexia causes distortion in thought or the distortion is there before the onset of anorexia, so cause and effect can be drawn.

·         McKenzie et al (1993) found significant differences in the estimation of females with eating disorders and those without:
             Higher estimation of body weight compared to other women
             Estimated an increased body weight after eating sugary snack

·         They also found that the women’s ‘ideal’ body weight was lower than that of the participants without ED.

·         A study by Bemis-Vitouesk & Orimoto (1993) found that anorexics consistently have a distorted body image and believe that they must continually lose weight in order to be in control of their bodies, reinforcing the theory of one of the cognitive distortions, and that there’s different manifestations of the disorder in different people.

·         In addition to this, Halmi et al (2000) had 322 people with anorexia complete the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, finding that they scored significantly higher than a control group.  Furthermore it was found that as levels of perfectionism increased so did the severity of the anorexia.

·         However, it may not be directly down to cognitive perception and processes, as the same study reported that perfectionism of this sort tends to run in families, meaning there’s a genetic component to the disorder.