Eating Disorders : Anorexia Nervosa

Characteristics of anorexia are dieting despite being thin and having an obsession with caloric intake as well as fat grams. An anorexic person often pretends to eat or will lie about their intake of meals because of their belief of being overweight. With all of the food restrictions many problems occur in the body and outside of the body. Some of these risks include the drastic change in brain chemistry that makes it difficult for them to think correctly, decrease in memory, fainting, or they may become sad, moody, irritable, or depressed. Other changes would include, hair may become thin and brittle, skin is dry and easily bruises, they get cold easily, and nails often get brittle. However those are not the most dangerous risks. If one is anorexic,

With Anorexia Nervosa, there is a strong fear of weight gain and a preoccupation with body image. Those diagnosed may show a resistance in maintaining body weight or denial of their illness. Additionally, anorexics may deny their hunger, have eating rituals such as excessive chewing and arranging food on a plate, and seek privacy when they are eating. For women, they go through immediate body changes from abnormal to no menstruation periods and develop lanugo all over their bodies. Characteristics of an anorexic individual also consist of extreme exercise patterns, loosely worn clothing, and maintain very private lives. Socially, to avoid criticism or concern from others, they may distant themselves from friends and activities they once enjoyed. Instead, their primary concerns revolve around weight loss, calorie intake, and dieting. In regards to health, many will have an abnormal slow heart rate and low blood pressure, some can develop osteoporosis, severe dehydration which can result in kidney failure, and overall feel weak (Robbins, 27-29). It has been reported that Anorexia Nervosa has one of the highest death rates in any mental health condition in America (www.NationalEatingDisorders.org).

Most people with anorexia have a distorted image of their body. An anorexic will look into the mirror and see fat, even if they are sickly thin. Most commonly, anorexia begins in the teen years. This may be related to the common self-image problems that many teens suffer from. Anorexia tends to be more common in females than in males, and early intervention seems to be the key when dealing with this disorder. When left untreated, anorexia can lead to a whole slew of physical problems. Health problems related to anorexia include osteoporosis, kidney damage or failure, heart problems, and even death. Anorexia also affects the brain, as a person starves themself their metabolism changes. This change in the body causes a person not to think clearly or make good decisions. As anorexia progresses, a person will begin to have irrational behavior. For example, a person suffering from anorexia will often make rules about the amount of food they are “allowed” to consume. Others may start to purge themselves after eating even the tiniest bit of food, which is known as Bulimia. Anorexia can also bring on another psychological disorder; Depression. Depression is a mental illness that causes a person to feel sad and hopeless most of the time. People that suffer from depression will lose interest in things that they previously enjoyed, speak slower than normal, have trouble concentrating and remembering things, and be preoccupied by death

Anorexia is a serious mental health condition. It is an eating disorder where people try to keep their body weight as low as possible. DSM5 outlines the key diagnostic features for anorexia. Firstly, people with anorexia will restrict behaviours that promote healthy body weight. This could mean that they are consequentially underweight and this can be due to dieting, exercising and purging. There will also be a significant fear of weight gain, but this fear will not be relieved by weight loss. There will be a persistent fear that interferes with weight gain. Lastly, there will be a disturbed perception of ones weight and/or shape and denial of underweight status and its seriousness. Anorexia accounts for 10% of eating disorders in the UK and has

To be diagnosed with eating disorder, someone must meet certain criteria. The criterion for diagnosis slightly varies depending on if you are referring to people who (A) fear gaining weight, and have significant weight loss,(B) eating a huge amount of food , then use laxative to remove the binged food, (C) the use of excessive exercise and fasting in order to remove or to reduce the amount of calories consumed, and (D) distorted body image, no matter how thin they become, they still see themselves as fat, or not thin enough. The onset of of symptoms begins usually in early adolescence with the diagnostic of disturbed Body image.

“Up to 30 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder” (Wade, Keski- Rahkonen, & Hudson, 1995). There are many factors which contribute to the development of eating disorders including “biology, emotional health, and societal expectation, and other issues” (“Diseases and Conditions Bulimia nervosa”). One of the most prominent eating disorders in America and around the globe has been around since the Middle Ages: “Bulimia is first reliably described among the some of the wealthy in the Middle Ages who would vomit during meals so they could consume more” (“A History of Eating Disorders”). Today bulimia is more prevalent and is predicted to affect around “4% of women in the United States” (“Eating Disorder Statistics and Research”). In 1979, Gerald Russell published a description of bulimia nervosa. It was the first description of bulimia ever published. Only a year later in 1980 bulimia appeared for the first time in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III.

From minor problems to very major issues, eating disorders have a wide range of physical consequences. When a person first develops a disorder such as anorexia nervosa, the side effects can be as small as a tingling in the hands and feet, loss of appetite, and dizzy spells. As an anorexic person falls deeper into the disorder, the effects become worse. People suffering from anorexia often have lack of energy, paling of the skin,

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder in which the individual has a distorted body self-image and an intense fear of weight gain. The individual intentionally restricts daily food intake, which causes alarming weight loss and results in self-imposed starvation. Internal medicine physicians, Brown and Mehler (2015) from Denver Health Medical Center warned, “Starvation induces protein and fat catabolism that leads to loss of cellular volume and function, resulting in adverse effects on, and atrophy of, the heart, brain, liver, intestines, kidneys, and muscles” (p. 11). Medical complications resulting from starvation affect nearly every major organ system in the adolescent body, some more severely than others. While there are 11 major organ systems

In the United States of America 20 million women, and 10 million men suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life. There are three types of eating disorders, Anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating. Eating disorders can be life-threatening conditions that can affect a person’s physical health, and emotional. Something that serious has people wondering what exactly is causing these people to risk their health on it?

In US today, over 30 million men, women, and children suffer from an eating disorder. The most common eating disorders are; Anorexia, Binge eating, and Bulimia. Why do people resort to something so life threatening? Many people are turning towards eating disorders because they don’t accept who they are. Eating disorders are a mental illness that can have dangerous effects on the human body, and several people are involved in this bad habit.

Anorexia is a psychological eating disorder that causes people to fixate on what they eat and their weight wanting to be thin. Some symptoms of anorexia are extreme loss of weight, being very thin, always tired and having low energy, loss of some hair, dizziness, and trouble falling asleep. Some risk factors for anorexia are being young, female, stress, society, thin people in the media, being sexually abused as a child, peer pressure, and family history. Ways that anorexia can be treated are seeing professionals like therapists, doctors, and nutritionist. The doctor can help determine what's medically wrong with the person. The therapist can help what's psychologically causing the health issues. The nutritionist can help you get back to a

The motivations behind the victims vary. Some is the incapability to form attachments. Anorexia has been said to be a complex condition. Anorexia has the highest death rate when it comes to psychiatric disorders. There is a 10% rate of those diagnosed who die from causes related to the mental disease. People who have anorexia find themselves unattractive. They feel as if they need to lose weight because they don’t meet the crazy body image of today’s world. Individual’s that suffer from Anorexia have an over exaggerated perception level when it comes to their body. Meaning that a patient could have a BMI at 15% but when looking in the mirror he/she seems themselves at 40% or something to that level. People who suffer with Anorexia have been found to have high level traits of obsession and perfectionism. Most people with Anorexia suffer other mental illnesses as well. These can be depression, OCD or anxiety. Treatment for anorexia involves a lot of counseling. Depending on the damage done to the body there could be hospitalization or in-house treatment. Some people have to have feeding tubes inserted. Patients have to maintain a healthy diet. If not treated there can be severe consequences. Physical problems include kidney failure and heart problems or worse case death. The organs don’t receive enough nutrition to function

skinny, thin, or even malnourished, for bulimic’s skinny or thin may be used but not all bulimics are in

Self-esteem is reliant upon body shape and weight. Physical implications may include disruption of the menstrual cycle also known as amenorrhea, signs of starvation, thinning of hair or hair loss, bloated, yellowish palms/soles of feet, dry and pasty skin. The risks that people take while indulging in anorexia can also become physiologically and mentally damaging. There are several effective treatments. One of which is hospitalization, this occurs when the weight loss is greater than 30% in 3 months time. Some other effects to be taken into consideration when hospitalizing a patient are the risk of suicide and depression, severe binging and purging, and serious metabolic disturbance. Therapy and counseling is used to help the patients with depression and family complications that may have led to the state they’re in. Clinical studies have not yet identified a medication that could improve the core symptoms of anorexia.

The National Institute of Mental Health states that one in ten cases of anorexia ends in death from immense starvation, suicide or medical complications that include heart attacks or kidney failure. More problems that do harm physically are anemia, heart palpitations, bone loss, tooth decay and inflammation of the esophagus. Many people may think that anorexics don't think about food or are not hungry but that's what anorexics always think about. The feeling of being hungry but not actually eating makes them feel they have control over themselves and their lives. It makes people feel they have accomplished something that being losing weight.