Eating Disorders paper for school

Eating Disorders

"We all know that embarrassing and loud growl that our stomach makes when we're hungry, the one that gets louder the more we try to conceal it. Where does that come from? Well, obviously our stomach but why?

What causes hunger, other than the obvious thought of it being that we haven't eaten in awhile. Walter Cannon and A. L Washburn decided to do an experiment to find out exactly what causes hunger and what signals us to feel hunger. Washburn swallowed a balloon and Cannon was able to track the movements of his partners stomach. This showed that our hunger starts when our stomach is empty, so when the balloon was small in Washburn's stomach. But with this, they also found that there are many factors into hunger, the biggest one being the brain signals that tracks hunger and thirst. (Coon)

There are also external factors on our hunger. Seeing the McDonalds golden arches automatically make me want a large sweet tea and their salty fries. Having food be visible, plus easy to get makes it even easier to follow our cravings from our taste buds versus eating or drinking what our body needs. Then there is the fact that a lot of people are emotional eaters, me being one.

Emotional eating can be a good thing and a bade thing. It can cause different eating disorders to form, such as anorexia and obesity which are on two opposite sides of the spectrum. Its really hard in society on both males and females having these skinny and fit celebrities everywhere we look. We want to look like that. This can causes a lot of people to become anorexic due to not liking their own bodies. On the other side, some people eat their emotions, and find comfort in a snack when they are feeling stressed.

Our bodies are ours, and ours to take care of. With this, I'm not sure if it is extrinsic motivation or intrinsic motivation that eating disorders fall into since I could see how it is both. It could be extrinsic because the goal is to look like a supermodel but it could be intrinsic because its gets your own body to what you want.

Either way, the same goes for having a healthy diet. Its a choice and its better on our bodies if we take care of them. Our goals are to be healthy, and have the muscle tone and that isn't going to be accomplished by forming an eating disorder, no matter what the goal is."