Evaluating Articles on Long Term Bulimia Nervosa Effects

Evaluating Articles on Long Term Bulimia Nervosa Effects

With the growing percentage of teen girls being treated and even more being diagnosed with Bulimia Nervosa, I decided to evaluate the multiple articles on effects and treatments for the disease. When searching bulimia pages and pages of links come up. To my surprise among the pages of links, I came across numerous pro-bulimia and pro-anorexia sites. However, the four websites I decided to evaluate were the first four search results that the titles really caught my attention with what I was really looking for. I based my evaluation on many different things from the credibility of the people writing the article or the magazine in which the article was published, how easy the information was to access and how helpful the information was in the way it was given.

The first article I evaluated was "Go Ask Alice" clip from a Columbia based newspaper. A young college girl wrote into the paper after being bulimic for over two years. She says she is currently being treated for 14 different cavities, one tooth, so decayed, it was barely even saved. Her salivary glands were swollen to where she looked like "a chipmunk" and she had been experiencing constipation. The reply back to the anonymous writer was a major warning and a very helpful source to people looking for the long term effects of bulimia nervosa. She emphasizes that most problems come from the vomiting which can eventually make you lose all your teeth. She warns how bulimia can mess with a persons blood potassium levels and drop it far enough that it disturbs the rhythm of the heart and cause sudden death. It can also bring chronic illnesses that may affect the heart, liver, gastrointestinal tract and neurological trouble. It backs all its information with quotes and information from Doctors from universities. The article was very accessible and said right in its title, what it was talking about. An article like this, I believe, is very helpful for people researching this topic, especially if they are doing it for personal reasons, because it has someone writing that is bulimic talking about her symptoms and the trouble she is having. For young girls in America, who currently are bulimic, and maybe think "it won't hurt me, those effects take forever to happen", this shows this is serious, it does hurt you and it doesn't take a long time!

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