Anorexia Tips | What Is It

In Anorexia Tips, the blog, we will be a good resource for suffers of anorexia and the loved ones around the anorexic who are affected by the eating disorder. The word anorexia by it self actually means the symptom of poor appetite whatever the cause. This appetite loss can be caused by a multitude of reasons. The reason we are most familiar with is caused by Anorexia Nervosa: an eating disorder of excessive weight loss and usually undue concern about body shape. This is the class of anorexics that we usually find in the US and other Western countries. In the middle ages there was a condition know as Anorexia Mirabilis. This refers almost exclusively to women and girls of the Middle Ages who would starve themselves, sometimes to the death, in the name of God.
Anorexia nervosa is known as an eating disorder that is a psychiatric illness. The main characteristics are body image distortion and extreme low body weight. The person suffering from this disorder has an obsessive fear of gaining weight because they do see their body for the shape that it really is. Like most other addictive behavior around food, the person does not recognize their true body shape and instead morph that shpe into something else by viewing through the disorder. Overweight people often have a distorted view of their body also. They tend to not realize that they are as overweight as they really are. There seems to be a complete disassociation between the reality of the body shape and the view of the body shape by the person with the disorder.
The control of body weight is very important to someone with Anorexia. Often times weight gain and loss is controlled by such extreme measures as self induces starving, excessive exercising, and purging. These have very profound affects on the health of the individual. Other measures of weight control such as diuretic drugs, to force dehydration, and diet pills, both legal and illegal, are known to be abused by ones with this disorder.
This eating disorder primarily affects adolescent girls but approximately 10% of those diagnosed with the disorder are male. Most of the research data has focused on females as they are 90% of the sufferers but recently some research has been done with young males. A unrealistic body image is at the root of the problem in both cases.
Anorexia nervosa is a complex condition that can have far reaching affects on the health of the individual including death in extreme cases. It has psychological components, sociological components, and neurobiological components.
In the popular media the condition Anorexia nervosa is usually referred to as just Anorexia. This is incorrect. As I stated above the word anorexia by itself refers to symptom of reduce appetite and is not necessarily psychiatric in nature. There is also, probably due to the media exposure, a certain sub-group of wanna be anorexia nervosa sufferers. These, usually girls, have romanticized the condition to point that they choose to force themselves to develop the body shape associated with the eating disorder. The difference is that these girls are choosing to alter their body shape as opposed to a true sufferer of the disorder who feels that she or he has no control over the situation. Like other food disorder sufferers, the person is out of control when it comes to a healthy view of eating and food.
In recent years mounds of research has been associated with anorexia nervosa. We are learning more each day about how to combat this disorder and help the sufferers to recover. We also are learning that family members can be deeply affected by a loved one with the condition. The bright spot is that there is help for both. If you suspect you or someone you love may be in this category, seek help immediately from a health care professional.