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A healthy desire to eat sometimes is at war with the ultra-thin body images flaunted by the media. Add to this pervasive image perfectionist personality traits and perhaps a genetic tendency and the result can be anorexia nervosa. People with this disorder begin to diet excessively in order to reach that ideal, supermodel body image or lean male image. Some adolescent girls experiencing the body changes of puberty, such as fuller hips, heavier breasts and a vastly changed body, use crash dieting as a futile attempt to get their childhood body back.
Someone who goes to the extreme will starve herself and sometimes exercise too much just to become even thinner. The person may suffer terribly from hunger pains yet continue to go without food. At this point, signs of anorexia nervosa begin to show. The clinical diagnosis is made when body weight falls to 15 percent below the normal range.
About 1 percent of teen girls in the United States develops anorexia, and up to 10 percent of them may die.
But anorexia doesn't just strike girls and women. Men and boys can also develop the disorder, although anorexia is much more common in females. About one in 10 adults with the condition are men, and about 20 percent to 30 percent of younger anorexics are male, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. But the incidence in males might be higher than we think because of it often being stereotyped as a female disorder.
One of the most frightening aspects of the disorder is that people with anorexia continue to think they are overweight even when they are bone-thin.
Some begin to wear baggy clothing to hide their bodies, which they perceive to be unattractive. Others develop strange eating rituals and may refuse to eat in front of others or pretend to eat food, only to pocket it and throw it away later. Frequently, people with anorexia are depressed and are ashamed of their bodies.
Because the level of female hormones in the blood of an anorexic woman falls drastically, she will likely stop having menstrual periods.
Danger Signs:
- Loss of a significant amount of weight
- Continuing to diet although thin
- Feeling fat, even after losing weight
- Intense fear of weight gain
- Loss of monthly menstrual periods
- Preoccupation with food, calories, fat contents and nutrition
- Preferring to diet in isolation
- Cooking for others, but not eating the food
- Hair loss
- Cold hands and feet
- Fainting spells
- Exercising compulsively
- Lying about food
- Depression, anxiety
- Weakness, exhaustion
- Periods of hyperactivity
- Constipation
- Heart tremors
- Dry, brittle skin
- Shortness of breath
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External Sources
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National Eating Disorders Association
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National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders
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This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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