Showing papers by "Jacques Buvat published in 1983"

Attitudes toward weight, body image, eating, menstruation, pregnancy, and sexuality in 81 cases of anorexia compared with 288 normal control school girls

Abstract: Eighty-one girls suffering from anorexia nervosa and 288 control school girls filled in a questionnaire including 48 questions to assess their weight and their height, how they perceived their body size and experienced their body, their eating behavior, and some attitudes toward menstruation, pregnancy, and sexuality. The answers of these two groups were compared using the chi-square test. Specific problems of weight, body size, and eating disorders were frequent in the control group, but they were significantly more frequent in the anorexia nervosa group. The difference was particularly significant for the following points: difficulties with perceiving their body size, overestimation of body size, fear of gaining weight, fear of having a normal weight, and guilt after food intake. The attitude toward menstruation and the desire to have children were the same in both groups. The proportion of girls in whom pregnancy and sexuality induced fear or disgust was significantly higher in the anorexia nervosa group, although these attitudes only concern a minority of the patients. This study confirms that the tendency to overestimate body size, the fear of gaining weight, and the conflict about eating are important mechanisms in anorexia nervosa. Moreover, this study shows that anorexia nervosa does not signify the rejection of a sexually attractive and menstruating female body in every case.

Gonadal hormones in male anorexia nervosa

Abstract: We studied eight cases of male anorexia nervosa selected according to Feighner's criteria At the time of their maximum weight loss, all had plasmatic testosterone assessment (J) Five of them also had assessment of plasmatic estradiol (E2) and baseline levels of serum gonadotropins as well as of their response to LH-RH The response of the testicular hormone to HCG was studied in three cases During weight recovery, six patients again had the same assessments, which were repeated at variable intervals At the time of their maximum weight loss, T was decreased in every case; E2 twice in five cases; FSH five times in five cases; and LH four times in five cases In four cases out of five, gonadotropins did not respond to LH-RH Mean levels of the four hormones were significantly lower than those of an age-matched control group of 12 normal-weight subjects During weight recovery, the response of four hormones and the gonadotropins to LH-RH increased We found a highly significant correlation between testosterone and weight Male anorexia nervosa, therefore, is associated with an intense hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, which mainly results from weight loss However testosterone and weight do not always move in the same way Other mechanisms, particularly psychosomatic ones, seem to act in the determinism of hypogonadism