Health Professions: Anxiety, Depression, and Eating Disorders Report

This report delves into the multifaceted nature of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, providing a comprehensive overview of these prevalent mental health challenges. It explores the characteristics of anxiety disorders, differentiating between objective and hypochondriac anxieties, and examining psychological speculations on environmental and physiological factors contributing to panic disorder. The report then outlines the symptoms, causes, and various types of depression, highlighting the significance of early diagnosis and treatment. Finally, it examines eating disorders, focusing on anorexia and bulimia, and analyzes the psychological underpinnings through cognitive, sociological, and psychodynamic approaches, including the role of cognitive-behavioral therapy and skewed self-perception. The report references several studies to support its analysis and provides insights into the complexities of these conditions within the health professions.

Anxiety, Depression, and Eating Disorders
Table of Contents
Anxiety............................................................................................................................................3
Depression.......................................................................................................................................3
Eating Disorders..............................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

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Anxiety
There is much confusion about anxiety disorders, which are often described as a simple
social disorder and less important than other mental health problems. People with anxiety
disorders have absurd beliefs about the real world. For example, they experience unbalanced
feelings of stress, tension and anxiety and are distracted by a sense of inevitable failure. People
with anxiety disorders are often monitored and anxious and will focus more on their side effects
and meditations on their condition than on the real world. Psychological speculation suggests
that environmental factors that increase anxiety are often described as a person's reaction to
worrying or frightening situations in their life. This may be due to life situations such as abuse,
ignorance or the death of a friend or relative.
Recognise that there are two types of fear. Objective 'anxiety' is triggered by external and
environmental variables, while 'hypochondriac' anxiety takes place in the patient's mind and is
held back by the self. In the assumptions of 19th century researchers such as Darwin and Freud,
anxiety was presented as a sign that a person would turn on any kind of risk that would put him
or her in a state of 'survival'(Sun et al., 2021). Contemporary psychoanalytic speculation argues
that mania is linked to inconsistency and communication between ecological variables. This
suggests that people with mania come into the world with a physiological response that tends
towards anxiety. This factor, combined with parental deficits in coping with an unhappy child,
has the negative effect of making them psychologically vulnerable to panic disorder.
The result is that people are unable to adapt to the stresses and strains of everyday life.
For example, they lack meaningful support techniques to manage their anxiety and often use
aversive behavioural styles. At the same time, these weaknesses exacerbate a person's physical
anxiety. Psychological and physiological changes such as feelings of anxiety and loss of control
combined with other depressing feelings such as unhappiness, self-denial and shame can lead to
the development of an anxiety disorder(Salari et al., 2020).
Depression
Depression is characterised by a mental state that usually includes feelings of
helplessness, horror, worthlessness, responsibility and unimaginable difficulties. Many
specialists treating patients with signs of these side effects may from time to time order a
psychological assessment, a psychiatric evaluation and even laboratory tests. Depression has

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many causes and can be due to abuse, certain prescriptions, an argument, a death or accident,
genetics, important events, personal problems, a serious illness and even substance abuse. In
addition to the many causes of depression, there are also many different types of depression.
These categories include major depressive disorder, diligence disorder, bipolar disorder, episodic
affective disorder, psychosis, post-pregnancy anxiety disorder, premenstrual anxiety disorder,
situational depression and abnormal depression(Twenge, 2020). Depression can sometimes be
very obvious to those around us, but it can also be disguised for outsiders.
To be sure that depression is present, the presence of at least five accompanying side
effects over a period of at least two weeks should be prominent, including a despondent mood or
a loss of interest or pleasure. Obvious side effects that have been analysed in relation to
depression include discouragement, indifference to pleasant exercise in any situation, severe
weight loss or weight gain despite eating fewer calories, more or less calorie cravings, sleep
disturbance or predominantly constant insomnia, mental slowdown, fatigue, sense of
worthlessness, self-pity and even the idea of self-destruction(Schroder et al., 2020).
As mentioned before, depression can manifest itself in many different ways. Sometimes
the mistreatment of a person can trigger depression. People who have been victims of any kind
of emotional, physical or sexual abuse are more likely to develop clinical depression later in life.
A terrible incident in a person's daily life, such as the death of a friend or relative, or even an
illness that is difficult to analyse, can contribute to an improvement in depression.
Eating Disorders
The afflicted has an odd connection with food and a skewed self-image. Weight reduction
and food consumption are obsessions among those who have suffered from anorexia and
bulimia. They also cannot understand the folly of their actions that make them feel they are
overweight when they are not. This research examines the psychological underpinnings behind
eating problems. Three psychological paradigms are examined: psychological, sociological, and
psychodynamic. The cognitive approach assumes the human brain is a computer. The
consequences of processing external facts form our way of seeing and acting(Smolak and
Levine, 2019). A lack of knowledge (rumination) and skewed self-perception are believed to
promote eating disorders.

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A pioneer of CBT, helps eating problem patients question their flawed thinking and
modify their judgement. It's simple to understand how cognitive-behavioral therapy might help
cure eating disorders, since many of the symptoms are tied to erroneous self-esteem. They were
taught a conceptual model. a card with nine body kinds to depict distinct individuals. On the
profile, some persons were skinny, while others were heavier. On the profile, they stated their
ideal weight, how attractive they thought their weight was to persons of the other sex. Women
tended to put their ideal weight and the weight they believed men would want on the lower end
of the scale. Their apparent weight was moved up on the scale. In each instance, men's ideal
weight and present weight were similar, but the attractive weight was higher on the scale.
This research shows the difference between men and women's perceptions of optimal
weight. But it has flaws. Tout d'abord, all respondents were upper-class Americans, aged 18 to
19. This element of the exam is decided by race, not by individuals excluded from that basis and
culture. The test itself has no precise success criteria since it just measures how individuals see
their bodies, not whether they have or will develop an eating problem. Moreover, the study
performed in 1985 must be genuine. The ideal self-image is different now(Rantala et al., 2019).

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References
Rantala, M.J., Luoto, S., Krama, T. and Krams, I., 2019. Eating disorders: an evolutionary
psychoneuroimmunological approach. Frontiers in psychology, 10, p.2200.
Salari, N., Hosseinian-Far, A., Jalali, R., Vaisi-Raygani, A., Rasoulpoor, S., Mohammadi, M.,
Rasoulpoor, S. and Khaledi-Paveh, B., 2020. Prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression
among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and
meta-analysis. Globalization and health, 16(1), pp.1-11.
Schroder, H.S., Duda, J.M., Christensen, K., Beard, C. and Björgvinsson, T., 2020. Stressors and
chemical imbalances: Beliefs about the causes of depression in an acute psychiatric
treatment sample. Journal of Affective Disorders, 276, pp.537-545.
Smolak, L. and Levine, M.P., 2019. Critical issues in the developmental psychopathology of
eating disorders. In Understanding eating disorders (pp. 37-60). Taylor & Francis.
Sun, F., Zhu, J., Tao, H., Ma, Y. and Jin, W., 2021. A systematic review involving 11,187
participants evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on anxiety and depression in pregnant
women. Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 42(2), pp.91-99.
Twenge, J.M., 2020. Why increases in adolescent depression may be linked to the technological
environment. Current opinion in psychology, 32, pp.89-94.