Eating Disorders And Religion Essay

There has been an increase of research in the study of religion and eating disorders over the past few years, which has evolved into many different results, terminology, and hypotheses. Researchers have studied the causes and treatments of eating disorders, mainly among females, and have found that sociocultural influences, including religion, are proposed to “play a significant role in the etiology, treatment, and prevention of eating disorders” (Smith, Richards, & Maglio, 2004). The focus of this paper is to investigate the role and the many differences of religions and their effects on disordered eating, whether intrinsic or extrinsic religious women are more likely to experience this, and how differently the women with anorexia and women with bulimia or other eating disorders are affected/ feel about the religion in disordered eating. Most

This concept of tradition and the practices they involve have been seen by some as to be a premature practice of anorexia of some early religious figures showing how religious and devoted they are by depriving their bodies of food (Smith, et al. 2004). This premature practice has carried over into our society today, as some individuals abstain from food to prove their devotion or accomplish “salvation” while striving to be physically perfect. In the practice of anorexia, it is found that the person, if religious, might cite asceticism as their justification of continuing the eating disorder. Asceticism, being “the practice of strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline” (Smith, et al. 2004), has also been cited in Joughin, Crisp, Halek, & Humphrey, (1992) as having a probable connection with anorexia. In the study carried out by Joughin, et al. (1992), two thousand three hundred questionnaires, which was comprised of the Eating Disorders Inventory and