11 - Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is an extreme loss of appetite over a long period of time for emotional reasons. The individual finds it impossible to consume food. In some cases even actual threat of death by starvation will not sway a person from refusal to eat. Anorexia nervosa occurs in women more often than in men in a ratio of nine to one. One usual reason behind the disorder is fear of sexual maturity; thus, the patient attempts to remain excessively thin and underdeveloped. Another reason for anorexia is that food may be associated with impregnation because the body expands with healthy eating habits as it does with pregnancy. Anorexia nervosa may by motivated by retaliation. Because parents often express worry over the child’s proper eating habits, rejection of food becomes an ideal method the child uses to exert control in their lives. The anorexic seeks precise control over his or her body and body functions, and she or he uses food as a means of reaching that goal. Some of the side effects of anorexia are hair loss, tooth and nail decay (from lack of nutrition), and a feeling of body coldness all the time.

Bulimia is an eating disorder related to anorexia, but quite different as well. The bulimic goes on an eating binge, consuming vast quantities of food and then attempts to get rid of the food by selfinduced vomiting, by excessive use of laxatives, by periods of fasting, or by excessive exercising. The procedures are different between bulimia and anorexia, but the underlying reasons are similar: an obsessive concern with body weight and body image, an abnormal fear of fatness, and an intense desire for control in one’s life. Often the person’s dentist can see the telltale signs of bulimia by the condition of the patient’s teeth from constant vomiting. Some of the medical effects of self starvation include dry skin, reduced energy, loss of menstruation, low body temperature, low heart rate, low blood pressure, and slow hair growth.

When either bulimia or anorexia continues for many years, serious damage is done to the body, which needs basic nutrition to grow and function normally. Persons afflicted with eating disorders has very distorted self-perception. They look into the mirror and see someone they consider fat and ugly although they may weigh less than forty kilograms. Bulimia and anorexia are extreme forms of dieting in which people risk their health and their lives to attain a thin body image.