Anorexia gets you in the long term
What is anorexia nervosa ?
Anorexia nervosa is the best known of a range of illnesses classified as eating disorders. Anorexia nervosa literally means “loss of appetite for nervous reasons”. The main diagnostic criteria for anorexia is that there is a weight loss leading to a body weight of at least 15 percent below the normal weight for height or age, although anorexia itself is much more complex than just loss of appetite or weight loss. Certainly those with anorexia will deliberately starve themselves until they are very ill, and in a small number of cases until they die. Anorexics are terrified of gaining weight and if they feel they have eaten even a tiny morsel too much they will exercise obsessively to get rid of the calories. They are often obsessed with the amount of calories in each type of food. They will often encourage those around them to eat more, whilst continually cutting back on their food intake. Anorexics desperately want to be in control, and the one thing they feel they can control is their food intake. Sadly they soon find that they have lost control and that their anorexia is controlling every aspect of their lives.But it is much more than just about food. The sufferer is normally deeply unhappy about some aspect of his life, and will have a very low self-esteem. Many sufferers feel that their illness gives them the attention from their loved ones that perhaps they felt they weren’t getting before. Finding out what has made the sufferer unhappy or craving attention can be very difficult and sometimes impossible to work out. There are literally hundreds of reasons why young people suffer from anorexia nervosa. The most important thing to remember is to look forward, not back. Often the cause is irrelevant to the recovery and most anorexics do eventually recover.
