Anorexia

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ANOREXIA
- Eating disorder

What is Anorexia?
Anorexia is an illness that usually occurs in teenage girls, but it can also occur in boys. People with anorexia are obsessed with being thin. They lose a lot of weight and they are terrified of gaining weight. They believe they are fat even though they are very thin. Anorexia isn´t just a problem with food or weight. It´s an attempt to use food and weight to deal with emotional problems. People that weigh 15% less than they should for their height and age considered to have anorexia, if they show tendencies of some of the other signs of anorexia.

What are some of the warning signs of anorexia?
• Deliberate self-starvation with weight loss
• Fear of gaining weight
• Refusal to eat
• Denial of hunger
• Constant exercising
• Greater amounts of hair on the body or the face
• Sensitivity to cold
• Bad mood
• Hard to concentrate
• Absent or irregular periods
• Loss of scalp hair
• A self-perception of being fat when the person is really too thin
What is the difference between anorexia and bulimia?
People with anorexia starve themselves, avoid high-calorie foods and exercise constantly. People with bulimia eat huge amounts of food, but they throw up soon after eating, or take laxatives or diuretics (water pills) to keep from gaining weight. People with bulimia don´t usually lose as much weight as people with anorexia.

Why do people get anorexia?
Nobody knows really, it is more of a mental disorder than physical.
Many persons see the thin pretty persons in the magazines, and they look at themselves thinking that they are not good enough as they are.
Also people that work demands them to be thin, like modeling and ballet dancing are
especially at risk.
.

What happens to persons with anorexia?
• People who do not receive treatment may become chronically ill or even die.
• Long spells without adequate intake of food can cause osteoporosis (fragile bones) and damage to the heart, liver, kidneys and brain.
• Anorexia can impede growth in the young and cause difficulties in concentration.
• People with anorexia may also experience mental health problems such as depression and increased risk of suicide.
• Lowered blood pressure which may result in fainting, dizziness, passing out
• General weakness
• Shrinking of muscles and other organs such as the brain
• Sensitivity to cold
• Difficulty concentrating, thinking clearly
• Dehydration that may result in constipation and dry cracked skin
• Heart failure, death
Behaviors Associates with anorexia nervosa
• Dietary restriction; eating less calories, only "safe" foods, no fat
• Hoarding, concealing, picking at, crumbling or throwing away food.
• Engaging in compulsive or ritualistic behaviour such as cutting food into small pieces, or rearranging food
• Behaviours associated with anxiety if a person has to handle certain foods (measuring, weighing food)
• Preoccupation with food, reading recipes, preparing food only for others
• Wearing baggy or layered clothing to conceal weight loss, or to keep warm
• Compulsive activity, stands instead of sitting, stairs instead of the escalator, and exercise
• Social withdrawal, secretiveness
Anorexia usually starts with dieting and continues into a cycle of losing weight and not eating. Individuals with anorexia nervosa may exhibit a combination of food restriction and purging (laxatives, diuretics, self-induced vomiting) to maintain a low weight. Restrictive behaviours include under eating, avoidance of high calorie food and engaging in strenuous exercise. These behaviours undermine an individual´s physical health, self-esteem and feelings of competency. Fifteen percent of people who develop anorexia die either directly from or consequences of the eating disorder such as heart failure

What can be done to cure anorexia?
People trying to recover from anorexia need counseling. They need to get back into eating small portions, and then increase the amount of food. Many people do never recover completely, they still count calories and don’t eat as much as others.

An example of anorexia
My friend’s big sister had anorexia. She couldn’t stand seeing cookies or sweets, so she threw them out, just threw them away. One day we even found a package of crackers in the sandbox outside their house. She became really thin, pale and fragile. She tried to eat, but she just couldn’t do it, she later threw it up. Once she ate a little bit of sauce with her food, when she found out that there was cream in the sauce she started screaming, rushed to the bathroom and threw up.
The whole evening she was sitting saying, now I am getting fat, I must have got some of that cream in me. She threw up 3 times that evening, just because she had eaten a little bit of sauce. She...