What Is Anorexia Nervosa?
Anorexia nervosa is an illness that usually occurs in teenage girls, but it can also occur in teenage boys, and adult women and men. People with anorexia are obsessed with being thin. They lose a lot of weight and are terrified of gaining weight. They believe they are fat even though they are very thin. Anorexia isn’t just a problem with food or weight. It’s an attempt to use food and weight to deal with emotional problems.
Anorexia nervosa is a serious, occasionally chronic, and potentially life-threatening eating disorder defined by a refusal to maintain minimal body weight within 15 percent of an individual’s normal weight. Other essential features of this disorder include an intense fear of gaining weight, a distorted body image, denial of the seriousness of the illness, and amenorrhea (absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles when they are otherwise expected to occur). There are two subtypes of anorexia nervosa. In the restricting subtype, people maintain their low body weight purely by restricting their food intake and, possibly, by excessive exercise. Individuals with the binge eating/purging subtype also restrict their food intake, but also regularly engage in binge eating and/or purging behaviors such as self-induced vomiting or the misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas. Many people move back and forth between subtypes during the course of their illness. Starvation, weight loss,
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder affecting mainly girls or women, although boys or men can also suffer from it. It usually starts in the teenage years. It is difficult to estimate how common it is but surveys suggest that up to 1 per cent of schoolgirls and female university students have anorexia nervosa. This may be an underestimate.
Anorexia nervosa is a life-threatening eating disorder that is characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss. The disorder is diagnosed when a person weighs at least 15 percent less than his or her normal body weight. Extreme weight loss in people with anorexia nervosa can lead to dangerous health problems and even death. The term anorexia literally means “loss of appetite.” However, this definition is misleading as people with anorexia nervosa are often hungry but refuse food anyway. People with anorexia nervosa have intense fears of becoming fat and sees themselves as fat even when they are very slender. These individuals may try to correct this perceived “flaw” by strictly limiting food intake and exercising excessively in order to lose weight.
