Force Feeding Anorexic Patients Is This Practice Doing...

Force Feeding Anorexic Patients: Is This Practice Doing More Harm Than Good? One of my high school best friends was diagnosed with anorexia my junior year of high school. Her condition was not severe, but still very serious because it led her to attempt to kill herself. After coming back to school from being in a mental health institution, she had gained weight from being forced to eat and was more than ever determined to lose the weight that she had gained. Clearly, being forced to eat made her condition worse. Patients with anorexia nervosa who are alarmingly thin, around 15% or so below their expected body weight, are sometimes force fed, more often than not through a tube inserted through their nose. This has raised many questions†¦show more content†¦Judges do realize what is at stake for these patients, but there are still varying opinions: some favor forced feeding because it keeps the patient alive while some are opposed to it because it takes away their dignity and right to refuse lifesaving medical treatment. Furthermore, there are different types of forced feedings. The most common type is the patient sits at a table and they must clean their plate before they are allowed to leave. Once they are done, there is a resting period wear patients are not left alone and cannot exercise. The other type is the type where the nutritious substance is sent through a feeding tube inserted through the nose to the stomach. I acquired my information from online peer reviewed journals like PubMed and articles from CNN and Huffington Post. The peer reviewed articles conducted experiments and observational studies to help further discuss whether or not this method was beneficial or harmful. The articles on websites like CNN and Huffington Post further analyze these studies but also bring up really good pros and cons and let you decide what stance you take. Despite having looked up some information about force feeding anorexic patients, there is still more info rmation that I need to know to effectively take a stance and back it up. Some of these questions that I need to research and learn more about include: Do ethical standards dictate what