Eating Disorders - Anorexia Nervosa Signs
by Michael Russell
zone3
In our continuing series on eating disorders, this article will focus
on Anorexia Nervosa.
Anorexia Nervosa is a very serious eating disorder which can be
potentially life threatening. It's main characteristic is self starvation
and excessive weight loss.
Anorexia Nervosa has four main symptoms and they are as follows:
1. A strong resistance to maintaining a person's body weight at or
above what would be considered a normal minimum body weight for that
person's age, weight and height.
2. A very strong and intense fear of getting fat or being overweight
even though to all appearances the person is at a normal or even below
normal weight.
3. A strong disturbance by the shape of the person's body. An obsession
with achieving a certain look that, though to all normal appearances, is
thin and frail, to the person suffering from this disease looks perfectly
normal.
4. A sudden loss of the menstrual cycle in women who are past the age
of puberty and in girls who have yet to reach puberty, the cycle never
begins.
It is important that to have the best chance of successfully treating a
person with Anorexia Nervosa that the disease be diagnosed early and
treatment begin immediately.
There are many warning signs that someone is suffering from this
disease. They are as follows:
a. A sudden and dramatic loss of weight in a very short period of
time.
b. An obsession with counting calories, grams, fat content and a number
of other things associated with the food the person eats, reaching the
point where they keep daily charts of calorie intake to make sure they
don't go above a certain level.
c. A gradual elimination of certain food groups that the person
believes to be fattening such as sweets and eventually reaching the point
of eliminating essential foods that contain carbohydrates. Eventually
there is very little food the person will eat.
d. A person suffering from Anorexia Nervosa will often make comments
about how fat they are even though it is apparent that they are in no way
overweight. This is usually one of the earliest warning signs.
e. The person may be very hungry and in need of food intake but will
deny that they are hungry at all.
f. The person will start to develop odd food rituals such as eating
foods in a particular order and arranging the foods in a certain way on
the plate. The person will also begin to excessively chew their food in
the hopes that more will be digested and less will turn to fat.
g. The person will start to make excuses for missing meals such as,
homework, tired or just not hungry. They will do anything to avoid
eating.
h. The person will often begin a rigid exercise routine regardless of
weather, fatigue, illness or even injury. The person will push themselves
to any length to get their exercise in. This in itself can cause great
harm if the person is out of shape.
i. A person suffering from this disease will withdraw from friends and
activities. They will eventually become totally reclusive.
In our next article we will cover some statistics of Anorexia Nervosa
and some statistics of the disease.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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