Qualitative Study: Anorexia and Young Women's Experiences

This qualitative research report investigates the challenges faced by young women dealing with anorexia, focusing on the illness as a complex interplay between physical and psychological identity. The study explores the research problems, questions, and phenomena of interest, including body image issues, fear of weight gain, and the impact of social settings. The report reviews relevant literature and details the research design, sampling methods, and data collection techniques, including interviews with young women aged 13-25. The findings highlight the struggle of these women in maintaining their diet, the influence of social pressures, and the use of internet resources for support. The research identifies both strengths, such as increased self-awareness, and weaknesses, like social isolation. The report also discusses sampling methods, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the process of data collection. The report concludes that anorexia is a complex issue that impacts the identity of young women and requires a multi-faceted approach to management and treatment.

Qualitative Research

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ANOREXIC DIS(CONNECTION): MANAGING ANOREXIA AS AN ILLNESS AND AN
IDENTITY.......................................................................................................................................1
QUALITATIVE PAPER.................................................................................................................1
Research problems......................................................................................................................1
Research questions......................................................................................................................1
Phenomena of interest.................................................................................................................1
Strength and weaknesses.............................................................................................................2
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................2
RESEARCH DESIGN.....................................................................................................................3
SAMPLING.....................................................................................................................................4
a) Sampling method....................................................................................................................4
b) Sample size.............................................................................................................................4
c) Inclusion and exclusion criteria..............................................................................................4
DATA COLLECTION....................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

ANOREXIC DIS(CONNECTION): MANAGING ANOREXIA AS AN
ILLNESS AND AN IDENTITY
The study was done so that the problems faced by young women due to the anorexic
identity can be understood including the stigma which is attached to it (Cornelius and Blanton,
2016). This disease is the third most chronic illness among females and it is one of the most fatal
psychiatric illness.
QUALITATIVE PAPER
Research problems
The major problem of this research was to control the eating disorder which can cause
negative body image, feeling insecure and fear of getting fat. Another problem for young people
was to identify the ways by which they can improve the social setting in order to prevent the
consumption of food which contains more fat. One more problem is to find out the difference
between anorexia and other chronic medial conditions. Main issues are related to the relationship
of young women with their favourite food, because they do not want to leave those high calorie
food.
Research questions
 What are the ways, women can adapt to control anorexic and overeating?
 How women can take help from internet to improve their diet ?
 What are the methods which can be used in finding out the difference between
overeating and anorexia?
Phenomena of interest
The interest is in engaging different experiences of eating disorders to the personality of
different women. The views were taken from those women who are suffering from bulimia and
anorexia. This research is based on the interrelationships between the discourse and subject
positions which are used by the young women, so that they can reduce the effects of anorexia
(McNamara and Parsons, 2016). The attention was on decreasing or increasing the weight, rather
than understanding the emotional and social dimensions a young woman is suffering because of
the disorder of eating.
Strength and weaknesses
The research was done so that it will be easy for young women to find out the issues they
can face because of over eating. The strength of this research was that people are able to
1

understand the effect, anorexia can cause and the impacts of this illness of their personality. This
will help them in maintaining their diet and provide different ways by which they will be able to
interact more with other people without any fear (Thapliyal and Hay, 2014). This paper also
shows the effectiveness of internet websites which can be used by young women to keep them
healthy. They can get support from other women who are also suffering from the same illness.
The weakness is, those who are having the disorder of eating will not be able to interact with
other people because of fear. They are afraid of getting ignored. The problem is that most of the
people who are suffering from anorexia will not be able to recover from it because of their
pleasurable relationship with food. One more weakness is that women are not able to part their
way from the junk or high calorie food. In near future, it will create major problem because then
they will not be capable enough to lose their weight.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The research was done by using the primary resource with the help of interview. The
findings of the interview will be fresh and new. Later on all the results will be compared to the
secondary research which was done by some other researcher. Primary research will be very
helpful in identifying the issues and problems faced by young women. The interview was
conducted from the female participants named Lydia, Mia, Hayley, Lauren, Ellie and Emily. The
age of all these women was ranging from 13-25.
After the interview got over, it was found out that most of them do not want to
communicate with other person and they want complete isolation from the society. According to
them they are not able to focus on any other thing rather than reducing their weight. But the
researcher stated that there are so many people who are not able to recover from this situation.
The visual dimensions of illness will be having some impact on the personality of the people
(Williams, King and Fox, 2016). At the time they look at themselves, they will see their dull
image and they will take this thing as motivation. Young women want their body very thin and
for that they will have to part their way from their favourite food.
As per the view of Mia on anorexia, she does not find her physic as attractive just
because of eating disorder. This will also put negative impact on their relationship with their
partner. There are few biomedical issues which are related to the weight gain or loss which refers
to the physical dimensions of illness. The researcher further find out that the physical appearance
and weight started changing in those young women who are socially involved (Maloney, 2013).
2

They take inspiration from other people because they also want to look more attractive. But
according to Warin (2004), there are majorly two approaches women will look for. Either they
will start eating constantly and do not care about its effects or they will start eating properly and
follow strict schedule. In this way, if they have used the second approach of eating, then these
women will never face the issue regarding their weight. O the contrast of this, if they are not over
eating and overlook the effects, then they might suffer from anorexia.
The relationship of people with anorexia is very complex and contradictory. Young girls
are not able to control on their diet when they are in school, because they are so addicted to the
junk food. According to them, they are too engaged in their studies and their social work that
they are not able to focus on their body weight and physical appearance (Cruzat and et.al., 2015).
Most of the young women in this research was able to reduce the impact of social life on their
weight. Anorexia shows that these women are having the strength to face the world which other
people are not having. Anorexic disconnection is the complex condition where people feel that
they are ill and do not feel like winning anything.
The majority of the strength from this review can be identified, and one of them is that
young women suffering from anorexic are very strong as they will face the society with full
confidence. They will use various approaches to reduce their weight, so that they can improve
their physical appearance (Herrman and Tenzek, 2017). The weakness is that often young
women are referred as attention seeker. Some of them are propelled towards contexts, on the
contrast of this they can develop more positive self representation.
RESEARCH DESIGN
The design of this research can assess the overall tactics used by the researcher in the
most logical way. There are two ways by which research design can be divided, one is
descriptive and second is exploratory. In the present research, exploratory research design is used
where the researcher used different interview questions to find the conclusion. First of all,
research problems were identified and on the basis of those problems the most effective ways
was developed to over the issue of over eating (Rance, Moller and Clarke, 2017). This type of
design can be changed based on the number of participants involved. This type of design is very
useful because this will provide the best knowledge for each research question.
Further, this design will provide proper guidance to the researcher to monitor each person
who was involved when the research was conducted. The scholar will be able to assign the
3

situation to each respondents so that he will be able to find out the accurate result about their
health condition (Rodgers, 2016). The aim is to find out all the possible solutions of the problems
which will be best for young women in order to reduce their weight and improve their physical
appearance. This design will use all the variables which are used at the time of research. This
design is very appropriate as it will produce the results which are easily analysed and accessed.
Most of the qualitative research are done by using this method, so that the best solution can be
identified for the given problem.
SAMPLING
a) Sampling method
This is the approach from which the researcher will be able to collect the respondents
from the entire universe. There are two different techniques which can be used for sampling, i.e.
profitability and non-profitability (Survey Sampling Methods, 2017). In this research, the scholar
has used random sampling technique which will help him in giving the questions to all the
respondents selected. Random sampling is helpful because the researcher will be able to focus on
all the respondents who are involved during the research and the chances of getting the solution
is very high by conducting the interview.
b) Sample size
The interview was conducted among 6 young women who are having their age from 12-
25. One of them is Lydia who was 14 years old and from past seven weeks she was in clinic. All
these women have faced some problem or the other regarding their weight and suffering from
anorexia.
c) Inclusion and exclusion criteria
The inclusion criteria are those characteristics which are must in the prospective subject.
All these are included in the research. Exclusion criteria are those characteristics which may or
may not present in the respondents. Inclusion criteria include the gender, age of the person.
Exclusion includes their qualification, family background etc.
The strength of correct sampling is that the researcher will be able to divide his time in
the most appropriate way. The answer from the young women can be analysed in the most
effective way. Young women will be able to tell about their problems in the comfortable manner,
so that it will be easy for the scholar to find out the solutions for the problems faced by them.
The one weakness is that in random sampling the researcher will not be able to have high
4

number of respondents. So there are chances that most of them will not be able to talk more
openly. This will prevent the researcher from finding the result.
DATA COLLECTION
Data collection methods are very crucial in understanding and overcoming the research
issues in the most effective way. Data collection methods are of two types i.e. Primary and
secondary. Both the methods will be helpful in gathering the data which will be helpful to
conduct the research. Primary data collection help the researcher in collecting the data which is
new and fresh (Data Collection Techniques, 2017). This can be done by conducting the
interviews or by using questionnaire. The secondary data collection is done by gathering the
information or data which is already used by some other researcher in the past. Various books,
journals and news articles can be used by the researcher to collect the data.
In this research, the scholar used primary data collection technique because it is the best
way of collecting the data which will be used by the researcher to generate the ways by which
young women can reduce their body weight. This will be done by using 6 young women who are
suffering from anorexia. All the data gathered from these women is very new and that data can
be used in solving the problem faced by other women.
The research has drawn various data which shows the condition of young women who are
suffering from anorexia. This can be termed as the stigmatised condition which can be either
irrational or self-inflicted. All other people have to understand their feeling towards the
relationship of young women in context with their favourable food products. Women can take
the help from internet and socialize themselves so that they will learn new ways and methods of
reducing their weight (Kendall, 2014). Anorexia is refereed as the eating disorder where people
will only eat without doing any physical work. Overeating is when people are too addicted to
their favourite food and starts eating. Not all the people who overeat suffers from anorexia. But
they have to do regular workout in order to maintain themselves and looks more physically
attractive (Duncan, Sebar and Lee, 2015).
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cornelius, T. and Blanton, H., 2016. The limits to pride: A test of the pro-anorexia hypothesis.
Eating disorders. 24(2). pp.138-147.
Cruzat M. C. and et.al., 2015. From eating identity to authentic selfhood: Identity transformation
in eating disorder sufferers following psychotherapy. Clinical Psychologist.
Duncan, T. K., Sebar, B. and Lee, J., 2015. Reclamation of power and self: A meta-synthesis
exploring the process of recovery from anorexia nervosa. Advances in Eating Disorders:
Theory, Research and Practice. 3(2). pp.177-190.
Herrman, A. R. and Tenzek, K. E., 2017. Communication Privacy Management: A Thematic
Analysis of Revealing and Concealing Eating Disorders in an Online Community.
Qualitative Research Reports in Communication. pp.1-10.
Kendall, S., 2014. Anorexia nervosa: the diagnosis. Journal of bioethical inquiry. 11(1). pp.31-
40.
Maloney, P., 2013. Online networks and emotional energy: how pro-anorexic websites use
interaction ritual chains to (re) form identity. Information, Communication & Society.
16(1). pp.105-124.
McNamara, N. and Parsons, H., 2016. ‘Everyone here wants everyone else to get better’: The
role of social identity in eating disorder recovery. British Journal of Social Psychology.
55(4). pp.662-680.
Rance, N., Moller, N. P. and Clarke, V., 2017. ‘Eating disorders are not about food, they’re
about life’: Client perspectives on anorexia nervosa treatment. Journal of health
psychology. 22(5). pp.582-594.
Rodgers, R. F., 2016. The relationship between body image concerns, eating disorders and
internet use, part II: An integrated theoretical model. Adolescent Research Review. 1(2).
pp.121-137.
Thapliyal, P. and Hay, P. J., 2014. Treatment experiences of males with an eating disorder: a
systematic review of qualitative studies. Translational Developmental Psychiatry. 2(1).
p.25552.
Williams, K., King, J. and Fox, J. R., 2016. Sense of self and anorexia nervosa: A grounded
theory. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. 89(2). pp.211-
228.
Online
Data Collection Techniques, 2017. [Online]. Available through: <https://cyfar.org/data-
collection-techniques>. [Accessed on 19th July 2017].
Survey Sampling Methods, 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.statpac.com/surveys/sampling.htm>. [Accessed on 19th July 2017].
6

7