Stress+Exhaustion=Anorexic?

In the United States, 11 million people fight the life and death battle with eating disorders, like anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating. Generally, society places a huge amount of emphasis on physical appearance. Many people believe that by achieving an ideal weight and shape they will achieve social acceptance. Striving for “attractiveness”, combined with college related stressors, like living away from home and having a mountain of school work, can have devastating effects. A recent study done at the University of Georgia investigated how eating disorders, psychological flexibility, and poor psychological outcomes were related in college students. The study is detailed in the article “Disordered Eating-Related Cognition and Psychological Flexibility as Predictors of Psychological Health Among College Students”.

Eating disorders are linked to distress, functional impairment, and negative psychological outcomes, like depression and anxiety. Even though eating disorders are a significant predictor, they do not necessarily lead to greater psychological distress. Research findings reported in the article suggest that psychological suffering is related to how people deal with dysfunctional private events. Dysfunctional private events are individual, and involve feeling negative emotions, or having self-defeating thoughts. The way a person relates to these events is known as their psychological flexibility. Basically, psychological flexibility is the behavioral pattern of experiencing private events without trying to judge, evaluate, avoid, fix, or change them, while also engaging in other activities. If a person has a high psychological flexibility then they can experience seemingly “negative” thoughts and feelings as mental events, without judgment or avoidance. A person with low psychological flexibility is likely to act along with negative thoughts they experience. An example indicated in the article is that someone who thinks of themselves as ugly or fat may avoid social gatherings to escape the fear of not being accepted. A person with high psychological flexibility is less likely to act along with this thought, because they know it is just a mental thought, not an undeniable truth. If a person has high psychological flexibility, then they are less likely to experience negative psychological problems, like depression, anxiety, self-harm, or substance use.

Thereby the purpose of the study performed at the University of Georgia was to investigate how people respond to private events (their psychological flexibility), and determine how and if psychological flexibility is linked to eating disorders and poor psychological outcomes. Poor psychological outcomes include psychological ill-health and emotional distress. In the study, participants filled out a 24 item self report questionnaire to assess cognitions related to eating disorders. Cognitions associated with eating disorders include the fear of weight gain, the importance of being thin and socially attractive, and low self esteem based on weight gain. The study found that cognitions related to eating disorders were in fact linked to general psychological ill-health and emotional distress. Results revealed that both eating disorder cognitions and psychological flexibility were significant predictors of general psychological ill-health and emotional distress in stressful interpersonal environments, like college.

Ultimately, suffering from a great amount of stress and exhaustion doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to acquire an eating disorder. As found in this study, a crucial factor in developing an eating disorder or another symptom of psychological ill health, is your psychological flexibility. In essence, a person with high psychological flexibility is able to deal with stressful events and thoughts, without acting negatively. A person with low psychological flexibility has a harder time dealing with low self-esteem and stressful events, and is more likely to develop an eating disorder, depression, or anxiety.

“Here Comes the Plane…”

An infant’s mealtime is typically another chore. The pimply big brother whines about his poor grade in Algebra, the mother-in-law who is incapable of living by herself is questioning which pills she’s supposed to take today, and the boss is calling to give you more spreadsheets to fill out before tomorrow. The infant begins to pout. You try to feed him, but he closes his mouth and turns away. “Here comes the plane…” Access denied. You check his diaper; it’s clean. You check under the table to see if the new puppy is snapping at his toes again; nothing. What, then, is the matter? A team of psychologists from the journal Behavior Modification believes they’ve begun to uncover the answer.

The article, entitled “Descriptive Analysis of Pediatric Food Refusal: The Structure of Parental Attention,” argues that the behavior of the parent feeding the infant has a marked effect on the whether or not the infant cooperates. In the daily droning duration of our lives, it is sometimes easy to take a crying, snot-dripping, babbling baby for granted. We, either consciously or unconsciously, conclude that since he doesn’t understand much yet, how we behave around him hardly makes a difference. He can sit on our lap and watch a rated R film and it’ll all go over his head. We can let a cuss word slip and he’ll continue playing with his building blocks. But as it turns out, our behavior, at least when it comes to convincing our young children to open his mouth for a spoon full of green baby food, does matter.

To prove this, the team of psychologist incorporated the good ole fashioned scientific method. They hypothesized that perhaps paying more attention to an infant during mealtime would make for more appropriate feeding behavior. Next, they designed an experiment using twenty-five volunteer mothers and their infants. Mothers displayed various forms of parental attention during mealtime. Some never made eye contact; some smiled and focused their attention completely on feeding. Occurrences of appropriate and inappropriate mealtime behaviors were then recorded in response to these differing maternal feeding behaviors. Once the data was collected, the team was able to cross-examine the observations and attempt to determine any significant increases or decreases in infant cooperativeness resulting from the mothers’ behaviors.

The results showed that increasing maternal attention was frequently followed by temporary decreases in inappropriate mealtime behavior and increases in bite acceptance. Moreover, various forms of maternal attention resulted in statistically significant changes in child behavior, which supported the clinical utility of the data. Of course, follow up experiments will need to be done to ensure that all variables are accounted for, but these results yield remarkably consistent input.

So no, it’s not because the green-pea pudding tastes bad, per say. At least part of the problem, so it appears, is the chore-like mentality with which the infant is being fed. The noise and scatter-brained distractions are too much for him to handle, and maybe a little tender loving care would calm him down.

The Media and Self-Esteem: A Dangerous Combination

Insecure persons beware: media exposure acts as a stimulus in our brain to trigger body-related schemas. Even if you feel completely comfortable with your appearance and don’t have an eating disorder, this article proves that there is some effect on your mood and personal satisfaction. Essentially, as would be expected, when someone sees a beautiful fit babe on the cover of a magazine, they don’t necessarily feel grand about themselves. This is the idea that the article from the Behavior Modification Journal jumped off of when they came up with their experiment to test how the media influences a person’s body image.

As proven at the end of this experiment, like it or not, the media influences the feelings you have toward your own appearance. Look around you and the American beauty ideals are plastered all over billboards, magazines, and tv. Personal body image comes from the combination of a variety of sources though. This article notes how perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral feelings all interact together and influence your personal body image. All in all, social comparison tends to result in body dissatisfaction, leading to things like eating disorders.

For this experiment, researchers decided to test the influence that appearance-related tv commercials have on 50 subjects: 25 with eating disorders and 25 without. After watching both commercials that emphasized attractiveness such as for swimsuits or cosmetics as well as neutral commercials such as for toilet paper, there was a significant change in the feelings of the patients with eating disorders. After watching the appearance-emphasizing commercials, they rated themselves as being heavier, having a more negative mood, and also reported a heightened desire to go on a diet. The patients without eating disorders didn’t express as strong of symptoms by any means, but they were still affected. This proves the researcher’s hypothesis that exposure to beauty-related items would increase thoughts of one’s own shape, weight, and eating behavior.

According to this website, we are assailed with 400-600 advertisements per day, one in eleven with a direct message about beauty. Now that just can’t be healthy for our little psyches. But if you think about it, these advertisements aren’t necessarily negative or mean. I have yet to see a commercial that says “you are fat and ugly, buy our product and your life will be happier!” The key to our lowered self esteem post-viewing has to do with one’s already present “low self-esteem, an inability to cope with their own emotions and stress, and many underlying issues.” This explains why in the experiment people with eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive overeating were more severely affected by the advertisements. This is due to the fact that generally eating disorders come in conjunction with the low self-esteem and other underlying issues mentioned before that react with the positive beauty image to trigger a self-esteem lowering reaction.

So while some of us (such as myself) may be looking at those models thinking, “hand that girl a cheeseburger!” almost all are affected by this social ideal. It somehow creeps back into our subconscious and ties many thoughts back into our dissatisfaction with our own appearance. Those with eating disorders tend to take it a little harder, but it seems this experiment proves that none of us can escape the wrath of the media.

Priorities: Carbon Emissions vs. Developing Technologies

According to this article by the Telegraph, every time a cow farts, it contributes negatively to climate change. Flatulence produced by livestock account for at least half of all animal-produced greenhouse gases. Although this example concerns methane, carbon dioxide ranks as the most commonly discussed greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide emissions come from all sorts of sources, not just cars and factories. Needless to say, the fact that carbon dioxide causes climate change (and we produce this CO2 in almost everything we do) creates a problem. This Nature article argues that in order to reverse climate change, we shouldn't worry so much about current carbon emissions as we should about producing new, carbon-reducing technologies. On the other hand, I feel that it is necessary to produce new technologies in conjunction with reducing our current carbon emissions at the same time in order to truly reverse climate change.

The author argues that in order to reduce climate change, developmental technologies need to take priority over setting carbon-emission-reducing goals. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t carbon emissions what are causing all of this madness in the first place? I thought it seemed a little odd that they had this idea that we could go on continuing to pollute the atmosphere and emit billions of tons of carbon into it. No biggie, whatevs. I’m not saying I don’t understand the importance of inventing new, greener technologies, because I definitely do. What I am saying is that while we are off in the science labs developing these miracle workers, we can’t just completely disregard the fact that we are emitting more carbon every minute.

This article actually even discourages reducing CO2 emissions or implementing a carbon tax because it could stifle economic growth. Okay, that’s a relief. So while the sea levels are rising, the food chain falling apart, and pollution inhibits us from breathing it will be okay because we are economically prosperous! Money has zero influence if you don’t even have an earth to spend it in.

The Nature article actually does admit that “stabilizing the climate is a huge technological challenge and the solutions of ready-to-deploy, scalable low-carbon technologies is far from being a reality.” Ah, there’s the rub. That‘s the first thing that came to my mind. It took, what, one hundred years to perfect the hybrid? Yep, the first electric car was invented in 1898. And look how many people are driving hybrid 112 years later. A very, very small percentage. What I think this Nature article lacked was the realization that although we might invent amazing, climate-change-reversing technologies, you still have to factor in the number of years it would take to invent, produce, and FULLY implement this revolutionary technology. People don’t like change, and they aren’t going to budge so easily. So when the article recommended that we just continue emitting CO2 until 2050 and THEN start decreasing output, I knew that was not such a hot plan.

It occurred to me that although we may produce technologies to decrease our current output of carbon, we might not be able to invent anything that reduces the carbon levels already put into the atmosphere by yours truly. Those kajillions of tons dumped there between now and 2050 could possibly remain right where they are. According to this article, if we adopt a “business as usual” approach to carbon emissions, they could double by 2050. In the 90’s we were emitting over 30 billion tons, imagine how much we are now. And now imagine that number doubled. Woah dang. But, on the other hand, according to this article, if we halve our carbon emissions by 2050 global warming could possibly be stabilized. Isn't that the goal here?

We all understand that technological change is vital, but it is important to make an effort now as well instead of continuing on this carbon-producing spree. We are doing irreparable damage already. It could be too late by the time our revolutionary technology rolls around.

Teetering On Edge

Around 8 years ago, an unprecedented occurrence took place; the sea engulfed an island - the island of Lohachara. The rising water levels, due to global warming, interrupted the life of many, leaving them homeless with no possessions. Also in dealing with global warming, the average concentration of CO2 in the air in 2008 was approximately 388.57 ppm, and scientists predict an increase to 970ppm by 2100. Looking at both situations, which one makes you want to do something about global warming? Personally, islands disappearing sounds like a big problem. Not knowing what ppms are, the rise in their number says nothing to a non-science person like myself. This disappearance of Lohachara demonstrates a tipping point, a large, devastating occurrence. Indeed tipping point play a vital role in drawing attention to and eliciting a response from the general public concerning global warming.

A tipping point is the big, drastic change caused by small, gradual changes. So, let's apply the tipping point concept to global warming. Atmospheric changes, the earth's heat, and weather patterns cause massive changes to our planet. Several prevalent tipping points concerning global warming exist, including the shrinking rainforest. By 2200 the lush rainforest climate will disappear from half the biome if global warming continues at the present rate. Also, melting ice caps have dumped fresh water into the ocean, disrupting ocean water circulation and causing more severe hurricanes. Finally, the melting Greenland ice sheet will eventually cause sea level to rise around twenty feet, emerging coastal cities with water.

As you see, tipping points draw attention. Who can ignore a half missing rainforest, intense hurricanes, or cities covered with water? Tipping points are vital to drawing awareness to global warming and encouraging the public to do something about it. A recent survey reported the concern for global warming at an all time low with about only 50% of Americans worried about it. Also reported: 57% of people even believe global warming is occurring and only 47% believe that humans are a cause.

Some people say reliance on tipping points is bad; however, these tipping points elicit a response. The consequences of global warming demonstrated by tipping points could change public opinion concerning global warming. If it weren’t for tangible, severe effects, the common public would not know about global warming. Sure, scientists would have the knowledge; they monitor the numbers. However, these numbers mean nothing to your “Average Joe.” These tipping points, effects of global warming, act as physical proof of global warming’s existence. These tipping points call for something to be done – for a change.

We can all be in agreement that global warming hurts our planet. We’ve seen the brutal consequences of burning too many fossil fuels and sending pollutants into our atmosphere. Tipping points have “pointed” the way for us to see the harmful results of global warming. Now, the question beckons us– what will we do about it? Will we watch as the rainforest diminishes? Or, will we look for solutions to the problem and halt global warming in its steps?

Too Soon for US Enterprise

President Obama pronounced the Constellation Program dead when he released his proposal for the 2010 federal budget (Nature)*. Funding for Constellation, NASA's plan to reunite man and the moon in 2020, has been pulled entirely. Instead, the money is now allocated for incentives for commercial space companies to develop cheaper launch programs for humans and cargo to reach orbit. Placing faith in commercial space corporations will run up costs, will create ethical issues, and will bring about difficult legal considerations in the long run. The space race is not over, and this decision could take us out of the lead.

To date, $9 billion have been spent on NASA’s Constellation project, which was supposed to develop an updated rocket system (Wikipedia.org) capable of carrying cargo and astronauts into space. The project was meant to replace the aging space shuttle that costs more to send into space every time it is launched. Constellation is effectively canceled though because instead of receiving the prescribed increase in funding, NASA is being allotted a billion dollars less this year. The money that was previously tagged for NASA has been reallocated as incentives, approximately $6 billion over the next five years, for commercial space companies to develop cheaper rockets with load-bearing capabilities. The government is picking the pocket of its personal team of rocket scientists and giving it to a bunch of businessmen in hopes that they can conjure a method of saving money. It is unknown whether or not a market for space flight even exists beyond NASA. In addition to the $9 Billion that has basically been wasted already, use of the International Space Station (Nature, Eric Hand)* that was supposed to end in 2016 will be extended to 2020, which will devour even more funding in the future. As if that wasn't enough of an insult, all deep space programs are being indefinitely canceled to free up more of NASA’s budget for Earth monitoring systems, such as a satellite that measures atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Global warming strikes again.

You are a menace.

Assuming commercial space companies are successful in producing cheaper, cargo-bearing rockets that are capable of orbital flight, the next steps are virtually unknown and unpredictable. These businesses will take what the government has given them and run into outer space as if it were the next gold rush. The idea of commercializing space is curtailed by a growing number of ethical concerns. To begin with, whose ethical standards even apply in space? The American government’s? Religious leaders’? The Federation from Star Trek’s? It is hard enough to think of determining an ethical code between different countries, let alone separate businesses. Next we will need to decide whether free enterprise should be allowed in space. The reigning economic system in the world may not be the most suited for outer space. Will countries and companies seek to claim different orbits? If facilities are established on the moon, will that land be the property of that company or nation? Manifest destiny was a perfectly feasible idea when people set out to explore the West because there was a limit to how far they could go. Once we set out to conquer the solar system and beyond, where do we stop? The point here is that privatizing space presents far more questions than answers (David M. Livingston), and in this day and age, questions have to be answered with law.

Current international space law is, in a word, inadequate, especially when you consider the fact that space travel may now be sponsored by a business instead of a government. Existing Space treaties (Sarah Coffey, 6)* employ vague phrases such as “free for exploration and use by all states” and that “the exploration and use of outer space … shall be the province of all mankind” to try and establish order in orbit. These treaties were written during the Cold War to prevent space from becoming another battlefield, and they were not widely ratified. Furthermore, it is obvious just by looking at the language that they do not account for separate companies entering into the usage of space, only separate countries. Once again, more problems arise than solutions. The issue of space law is not entirely without similar precedent. Sarah Coffey likens the situation to maritime law and to laws governing Antarctica (10)*. These are areas of the world that were uncharted for long periods of history and that were lacking in adequate legal oversight. Governments have since negotiated effective treaties that keep these regions from being lawless. If similar laws are written to govern space with individual corporations in mind, then maybe the fever will pass and businesses will not simply run wild in the final frontier.

By denying NASA the funds it needs to continue its space program, the president is creating a powder keg of issues that will be ignited by the volatile practices of commercial businesses. He is taking money out of the hands of people that we have trusted it with since they took us to the moon the first time forty years ago and instead giving it to people that can only give us projections and rough estimates of their capabilities to even accomplish the mission. NASA has done it before. They have the game plan written up already. Why then are we letting someone else reinvent the wheel to run ourselves over with it? The only way to salvage the situation will be to make sure adequate regulations are in place before stellar syndicates are established. Otherwise, this decision makes very little sense.

About as much sense as this picture.

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A Decade for those who may only have A Decade Left

For those who knew Abraham Lincoln well, it came as no surprise to find him weeping in private or reciting maudlin poetry to express his many melancholies. Nowadays, we accept the theory that our sixteenth president suffered Major Depressive episodes. Though despite his unwavering personal woes, honest Abe persevered and led our nation through what was perhaps the most trying time in our history. But it wasn’t the civil discord that made him blue—blue as in sad, not blue as in the colors of the Union—it was the fate of his dear children, who died at early ages due to physical illnesses such as tuberculosis and typhoid fever. I present this instance for two reasons. One, to prove that those with depression can still do great things, and two, to point out that Lincoln’s depression primarily stemmed from his children’s uncontrollable deaths. Bearing this in mind, I’d be willing to bet that if Lincoln was in control of allocating medical research funds, he’d give less toward understanding psychiatric disorders such as depression, and more toward understanding the deadly diseases that claimed the lives of his children.

Yes, psychiatric disorders are hard to live with. Yes, learning to prevent them will make the world a better place, not only for the afflicted individuals, but for the individuals’ families and friends. On these facts, I agree with the article from I read from Nature entitled “A Decade for Psychiatric Disorders.” But then the author of the article makes a call to action. He argues that psychiatric disorders deserve a bigger slice of the research funds and that this coming decade is the time to focus more on curing and understanding these mental illnesses. This would be nice, I thought, but is it practical? In light of the millions dying from more-immediate afflictions such as heart disease, Cancer, AIDS, Malaria, and countless other conditions (not to mention tuberculosis and typhoid fever in their day), I am not convinced that now is the time. Yes, snapping a girl’s daddy out of depression would make the world a better place, but I argue that removing Cancer cells from his prostate and saving his life would be even better.

To make-concrete his claim that health-related research is unjustly disproportional, the author manipulates his reader’s sense of logic by drawing a comparison. In Britain, he states, the public donates a staggering £500 million (US$800 million) every year to charities for cancer research alone, but for mental-health research the figure is just a very few million. This would be an affective point, were it not for the fact that the money was publically donated. I believe that the collective concerns of the people should represent the collective aims of our research. Simply put, in our struggling global economy, we have to prioritize. As Newton put it, for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. Similarly, if we distribute more funds towards researching psychiatric disorders, we would consequently have to pull funds from researching the most serious, life-threatening, and widespread ailments on Earth.

In fact, my psychology book from last semester makes a case that psychiatric disorders (such as depression) may primarily be environmental. It describes growing trends over the years, and suggests that as the world becomes more media-driven and materialistic rates of depression have steadily increased. If this is the case, then the sickness is based within the sufferer’s subjective view of the world. Theoretically, he could suck it up, exercise free will, and change his circumstances. He could quit feeling sorry for himself and adopt a more cheerful view of the world. But easier said than done, right?

I did a little research of my own, and found an article from the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy entitled “Self-Administered Optimism Training: Mechanisms of Change in a Minimally Supervised Psychoeducational Intervention.” The article asserts right off the bad that a “Pessimistic explanatory style is a robust predictor of future depressive symptoms.” It then details an experiment in which 112 college students with a pessimistic explanatory style identified from a larger screening sample were randomly assigned to either Self-Administered Optimism Training or a no-treatment control group. The students who practiced optimism demonstrated a significant drop in pessimism in three separate but related assessments. The article concludes by suggesting that although the tests were preliminary in nature, the findings “demonstrate the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of an inexpensive, prophylactic treatment for depression that utilizes a minimum of therapist contact.” Easier said than done, right? Perhaps so, but it might be easier than people think.

By including this research, I am trying to make several points. One is that there is research being done, and it appears to be doing just fine. The next is that based on this study, improvements can be made by simple methods of self-motivation and a willingness to change, not dishing out millions. And finally, non-psychiatric disorders such as cancer are primarily genetic, not environmental, and cannot be cured simply by administering short sessions of optimism training. Cancer patients possess less control over their fate, and the research needed to understand and ultimately cure the condition is, by nature, more expensive.

I found additional evidence to suggest that depression lies primarily in the eye of the beholder in an article from Science entitled “Can Placebo Be the Cure?” You see, drug companies had eagerly been anticipating a highly-touted product to ward off depression, but when the company sat down and analyzed the data from the clinical trial, it found that patients who had received the dummy pill had done unexpectedly well. Those on the placebo did almost as well, in fact, as those on the actual drug, thereby wiping out the rationale for the new antidepressant. These results offer further proof that depression may not be as hopeless and harmful as is often thought. Neither optimism training, nor a placebo cost very much, so why restrict funding for deadly diseases and give more to those with psychiatric issues? After all, there is no placebo for Cancer.

And maybe I am going a little overboard here, but perhaps if there were less terminally ill people in the world, those prone to depression would have less to be depressed about; sort of a two-birds-with-one-stone type scenario. It’s easy to be passionate about a cause, as I believe the author of the article from Nature is, but it is harder to be logical in considering the consequences. In this case, allocating more funds towards research on psychiatric disorders would remove funding from research being done on deadly diseases. The title of the author’s article is “A Decade for Psychiatric Disorders.” I say, how about a decade for those that may only have a decade, or less, left?