What are the ethical issues of anorexia?

Answer 1

Anorexia brings up many ethical issues tied into the physical problems or issues that may arise, too.

1. A main one is that anorexia is very much a conscious "disease" or "disorder". Unlike bacterial or viral disease, or conditions such as cancer, or mental disorders like bipolar disorder, anorexia is very much so controlled by the individual. They make concious decisions about how to eat, what to do, how to exercise, and so on. The only difference is that they often cannot tell them selves to make the effort or decisions to stop.

2. This brings up the problem, though, of how do you treat someone who is chosing to inflict themselves with these problems. Doing so by force would be unethical and inhumane, yet it cannot often be done by choice.

3. There is also the ethical issue of when to treat and when not to treat. What really defines someone as "bad" or "severe"? When should treatment take place? What kind of treatment should happen? (though there are medical objective criteria as to when someone is malnourished and should be hospitalized e.g. low temperature, low HR, low BP, very very low weight, electrolyte abnormalities)

There are so many different grades of the disorder that there is no one real method of treatment or care, and this can bring up problems of who is deciding on treatment plans, if they have the best interest of the patient in mind, and what qualifies them to suggest or enact these specific methods of treatment over other methods.