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What is Anorexia?
Anorexia Nervosa, or, ana, is and eating disorder where people starve themselves. Anorexia usually begins in teens, or those nearing puberty. People with anorexia have extreme weight loss, usually 15% below the person's normal body weight. Anorexics have many varieties of losing weight, some of which include intake of laxatives, over-exercising, and not eating.
Symtoms of Anorexia
Physical Symptoms
There are many symtoms of anorexia. Some are visible changes, like extreme weight loss. Others involve the inside of the body. The symptoms of anorexia are:
Avoiding eating
Denying hunger
Avoiding social occasions involving food
Food rituals to eat less, such as eating in secret, Eating foods in a certain order, excessive chewing, playing with food, and eating unnaturally small amounts of food
Dramatic weight loss
Refusing to gain weight
Denial
Obbsessing over diets and weight loss
Excessive weighing, and obbsessing over small changes in weight
Fear of gaining weight, and/or being fat
Distorted body image EX)Perception of being over-weight, when actually underweight
Basing their worthiness on appearence and body image
Obbsessing over excercise routine
Changes in Behavior
Anorexia can induce many behavioral changes as well.
Insomnia
Mood Swings
Depression
Intense feelings of lonliness
Sneaky behaviors involving food
Emotional outbursts
Fear of others opinions on their eating disorder
Withdraw from daily life
Causes of Anorexia
Possible Causes
Cultural Pressures - In many societies, Being extremely thin is important for women, and represents beauty, succsess, happiness, and self-control. Women are targeted with messages form the media that they must diet to meet this standard. But, this "ideal" body image is almost impossible to reach for most women, leaving them very dissatisfied with their body image.
Mental Issues - Psychological characteristics that can make a person more likely to develop anorexia include: Low self-esteem, feelings of being worthless, poor, or distorted body image, depression, difficulty expressing emotions, a need for control, obbsessing over perfection, physical or sexual abuse, a need to feel special or unique. People who are driven to lose weight are often determined in other areas of life, such as schoolwork, career, physical fitness, and/or exercise.
Family Enviroment - Some personal lifestyles can contribute to the development of eating disorders as well. Families with anorexic or bulimia can sometimes be: Overprotective, strict, and over-worrying. Other family issues that can lead to the devolopment of eating disorders are: Valueing body image and appearence too much, criticizing a child's weight or body shape, and being sexually or physically abused.
Genetic Factors - Anorexia occurs eight times more often in people who know, or have realatives with an eating disorder. But, scientists don't know what the inherited factor is yet.
One possible factor is biology. A person might inherit a gene from their parents that predisposes them to a susceptibility to eating disorders. While that may not be enough on its own, it certainly starts that person off on the wrong foot and if combined with other factors it can lead to an eating disorder. For example, an individual could inherit a slow metabolism causing them to put on weight faster than others, which in turn could cause them to develop an eating disorder to counteract the weight gain.
Eating disorders are not caused by a single source, such as control, but are due to an accumulation of factors including genetics, upbringing, culture, and personality.
There are many different characteristics associated with a person who has been diagnosed with anorexia. Anorectics have a distorted image of their bodies. In other words, they see themselves as fat even when they are emaciated. They also have an obsessive preoccupation with food and thinness. Anorectics suffer from depression, mood disturbance, chronic feelings of low self-esteem, and insomnia or other sleeping disorders. Another common symptom is amenorrhea. This is a loss of menses or not achieving menarche if the disorder begins before puberty. Anorectics also impose extreme dieting or exercise practices on themselves.
Imagine looking in a fun house mirror and seeing a distorted image, something that is not really there, an image that does not exist. This happens every day for teenage girls struggling with anorexia nervosa. Anorexia, an eating disorder that causes people to obsess over weight, causes an individual to see a very different image than what the glass reflects. The most prominent effects of anorexia include psychological and emotional stress on the body and body deterioration, both of which ultimately lead to possible death or suicide.
Anorexic and bulimic people are often perfectionists, with unrealistically high expectations. They frequently lack self-esteem, with their feelings of ineffectiveness and a strong need for other peoples’ approval. Causes There is at present no generally accepted view of the causes of anorexia or bulimia. Most authorities believe the problem to be psychologically based, possibly stemming from family and social pressures, or other forms of stress in our modern environment. Where a high value is placed on slim-ness, women are most likely to be judged on their appearance, against a heavy background of high carbohydrate junk food promotion.
Anorexia is a psychiatric disorder that is most common in young women. Those who suffer with anorexia have a fear of gaining weight and have an inaccurate portrayal of their own bodies. They see themselves as being fat, even though they are already thin to begin with. They are willing to go to extreme measures to lose weight, but the only outcome is a severely unhealthy body weight. To achieve the weight they want they will either starve themselves or do a tremendous amount of exercise.
Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by severe restriction of food, an intense fear of gaining weight, a distorted body image and a body mass index of less than 18.5 (Kring, Johnson, Davison, Neale, 2013). There are two subtypes of anorexia, Restricting and Binge Eating/Purging. An individual who falls under the Restricting subtype severely restricts food intake, while an individual who falls under the Bing Eating/Purging subtype regularly engages in binge eating and purging. Anorexia typically begins in adolescence and primarily affects women. The disorder is more common in women than in men, mainly because of the cultural emphasis that is placed on women’s beauty.
The cause of anorexia is unknown, but people with this disorder believe that they will be happier and more excepted thin. These people tend to be perfectionist and have to have everything in their lives perfect. Many cases occur in good students that are involved in student activities and sports. Anorexics incorrectly believe that they need to lose weight to be happy. Body image distortions are common. Some cases of Anorexia occur from difficulties in relationships and unresolved conflicts or painful experiences from childhood.
Anorexia is a mental illness that affects all age groups and all ethnic groups. Anorexia does not only have physical symptoms, but mental symptoms also. There are environmental and natural causes. Anorexia affects people in different ways. There are various treatments for this disease (NEDA). Karen Carpenter was one woman who was affected by anorexia (“Karen Carpenter”).
Most of you probably already know what anorexia is, however in case you don't anorexia is basically a disease involving self-starvation. Anorexia victims have a very low "ideal" weight. It might begin as a normal diet carried to extremes, reducing their food intake to a bare minimum. Rules are made of how much food they can eat in one day and how much exercise is required after eating certain amounts of food. With anorexia, there is a strong almost overwhelming fear of putting on weight and they are preoccupied with the way that their bodies look. Anorexia sometimes involves use of laxatives, diet pills, or self-induced vomiting to lose or to keep weight off (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/anorexianervosa.htm). Anorexics may show symptoms such as extreme weight loss for no medical reason. Also, many deny their hunger, chew excessively, choosing low calorie foods and exercising excessively (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health).
Body image has recently become very popular in pop culture; body image being the way someone views their body. Society is obsessed with the human body: what it looks like and what that means. Due to the overuse of ideals in media, people, especially youth, have an inherent desire to want to be seen as beautiful because society pairs these traits with success. When these standards are not met it can create a bunch of problems that stem from body negativity. People will resort to self-harm such as cutting themselves and even develop eating disorders that later result in health problems. It is also common for negativity and rejection to come from peers in the form of verbal abuse. School yard bullies and even loved ones will call people cruel names to tear them down and build themselves up. Both verbal abuse and self harm also have the potential to create mental disorders or illnesses such as anxiety, paranoia, and depression. Celebrities, who portray the idolized ideals that cause these problems, hurt even themselves in the process of doing so. As mentioned earlier, Matt Damon dehydrated himself so severely in order to keep a lean body for a film that he had constant dizzy spells and almost a serious heart condition and most stunt doubles for celebrities are on drugs to maintain their bodies in leu of having personal trainers (Hill 64). Most of the Kardashians, who are
Anorexia may not be noticed in early stages. The Anorexic usually chooses to wear layered and baggy clothes to hide the “ugly fat body” .An Anorexic may have ritualistic eating patterns such as cutting food into little tiny pieces and weighing themselves. These can be found in people who are on a healthy diet, but in Anorexics these behaviors are extremely exaggerated. Other warnings are deliberate self-starvation with weight loss, fear of gaining weight, refusal to eat, denial of hunger, constant exercising, sensitivity to cold, absent or irregular periods, loss of scalp perception of being fat when the person is really to this. Some other associated features are depressed mood, somatic sexual dysfunction, and ...
They may not like the way they look in the mirror, so they want to look like someone else. Watching media and the environment all influence body image problems. When some teenagers see their friends around them and all the supermodels and stars on TV with their perfect bodies and skin, teenagers want to look like them. Often adolescents are associated with extreme behaviors and are engaging in practices that could be called dangerous.
Anorexia is defined as a lack or loss of appetite for food. This disorder is characterized by a desire to lose weight by refusing to eat. Throughout my life, anorexia has always been a pending disorder. My adolescence was a time where it was the worst, as the culture shock and sudden changes in my life began to set in, anorexia had crept back into my life.
Anorexia is a type of eating disorder who has an intense fear of gaining weight. They severely limit the amount of food they eat and can become dangerously thin (1). Anorexia affects both the mind and body and can even become deadly. Anorexia usually starts in the teen years and can go into adult hood. Untreated anorexia can lead to starvation and serious health problems, such as osteoporosis, kidney damage, and heart problems. Some people die from these problems (1). The cause of anorexia is not fully understood. It is thought to be from a mix of physical, emotional,, and social triggers (2). Extreme dieting changes how the brain and metabolism work, and it stresses the body. Genetics play a big part in anorexia. A combination of certain personality traits such as low self-confidence along with perfectionism and cultural and social pressures can play a big part in anorexia. For some teens, anorexia can be a way of coping with stressful events, such as moving, divorce, or the death of a love one (2).