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Shopping addiction is a behavioral addiction often referred to as `shopoholism` and also known as oniomania or compulsive shopping. This condition was identified in the nineteenth century and marked a psychiatric disorder in the twentieth century. [1]It normally begins in the early adulthood and is experienced by teenagers in their late teens .it mostly affects females as compared to males. Like any other addiction, it is characterized by obsession, compulsion, excessive spending on purchasing items.[2] Most people become shopping addicts to seek solace from emotional problems such as loneliness, stress and it could be an indicator of issues that a person is avoiding facing. they result to shopping to relieve stress or to prove a point and it eventually becomes a disorder when the person cannot turn down a product salesperson, cannot resist buying an item regardless of whether she needs it or not and does not budget her income therefore goes overboard with his expenditure. The disadvantages of compulsive shopping override its advantages. One of the advantages is that it increases the revenue of business enterprises since the shoppers buy so many of their items and this translates into a better economy. However, there are negative effects to the shopper in various ways: relational effects: it could result into family break-ups due to financial problems caused by overspending, could also lead to poor relations with friends and the people around since shoppers develop bad habits such as lying to cover up for their mistakes.
Financial difficulties: shoppers develop huge financial problems due to spending without a budget. Some of them even result to borrowing just to get money to spend on shopping and they end up with huge debts resulting in loss of property they had pledged as collateral or even bankruptcy.
Emotional effects: the compulsive shoppers remain
Bibliography: Aboujaoude, E., A 1-year naturalistic follow-up of patients with compulsive disorder. Journal of clinical psychiatry 2003 Donald W Black, A review of compulsive buying disorder. World Psychiatry February 2007. 6(1):14-18 Kelly Owen. What Is Compulsive Disorder? About.com. Reviewed by the medical review board http://ocd.about.com/od/otheranxietydisorders/f/What-Is-Compulsive-Shopping-Disorder.htm ----------------------- [1] Donald W Black, A review of compulsive buying disorder.World Psychiatry February 2007. 6(1):14-18 [2] Aboujaoude, E., A 1-year naturalistic follow-up of patients with compulsive disorder. Journal of clinical psychiatry 2003 [3] Owen Kelly. What Is Compulsive Disorder. About.com. Reviewed by the medical review board http://ocd.about.com/od/otheranxietydisorders/f/What-Is-Compulsive-Shopping-Disorder.htm