Health Consequences of Child Abuse – Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia

A person with bulimia Nervosa develops an obsessive control of their weight. The patient is dominated by the condition of eating binges. He consumes large amounts of calorie-rich foods as a result of lesser control over himself. He then attempts to compensate for over-eating by self-induced vomiting or using fluid tablets. The patient suffers from dental erosion and swelling around the face due to irritation of the salivary glands. He is usually overweight with respect to the height.

The abused children also develop bulimia due to multiple factors like genetic or social. The most common factor that develops this disorder is an experience of sexual abuse in early childhood. Many clinical reports have found evidence of high rates of childhood sexual abuse among bulimic patients.

Abramson and Lucido

Abramson and Lucido justified the same study in 1991. Nearly 69% bulimics patients suffered from childhood sexual experiences.

But the study failed to establish the connection between eating behaviors and the number of sexual abuse experiences. Welch and Fairburn in 1994 conducted a case-control study in order to observe an association of sexual abuse with Bulimia Nervosa. The study had multiple objectives.

Authors wanted to find out the effect of developing bulimia Nervosa in abused children. They also wanted to find if any increase in risk was linked to bulimia Nervosa or it was due to psychiatric disorders. The authors concluded that only a few victims report a history of sexual abuse due to several reasons.

They concluded that sexual abuse can lead to the development of psychiatric disorders and can also develop bulimia Nervosa. These authors developed findings on the basis of data gathered through the Child Sexual Abuse Questionnaire and the Family Environment Scale. They performed chi-square analyses and variance analyses of ANOVA.

The authors also found that the level of severity of bulimia is connected with the level of abuse the child faced. The results also indicated that risks of developing bulimia in an abused child are related to family variables. These variables play a role in increasing the risk of bulimia.

Obesity

Obesity can also be the result of another form of eating disorder. It can be developed due to many factors including hereditary factors. Yet little research has been done to study the connection of obesity with a history of childhood sexual abuse. Gorey and Leslie collected 25 cross sectional studies. These studies were conducted in North America. The samples of data ranged from 1969 to 1991. The used the data of 20 000 individuals who experienced early childhood sexual abuse. They found that women tend to become more obese than men in case of suffering from childhood abuse emotionally or physically.