Anorexia is a general loss of appetite, or a loss of interest in food. Anorexia may be a symptom of other diseases such as cancer.
Anorexia Nervosa is a life threatening eating disorder that is characterized by an obsession with losing weight. People who suffer from this disorder fear weight gain of any amount. They will go to extremes toprevent gainingeven a single ounce by doing things such as starving themselves, excessive exercise, and forcing themselves to vomit if they think they ate too much. These people may be severely thin or underweight and will still completely believe they are “Fat”. No matter how many positive comments an anorexic may get about being thin, or how someone wishes to be as thin as them, it does not affect the way they think about themselves. Both men and women suffer from anorexia nervosa, but it is most commonly found in women, especially teenage girls.
The man in the picture above was a male model who passed away due to Anorexia Nervosa.
This disorder is uncontrollable and it takes over the lives of people if they don’t get professional help early enough. People can not live a normal life while living with this illness. Anorexics will spend hours each and every day staring at themselves in the mirror, picking out every Flaw they can find. Their mind is flooded 24/7 with thoughts of food, their weight, and their body image. They have an extreme fear of eating, even the items that are the safest against gaining weight like water, fruits, and vegetables.
People with anorexia nervosa do eat, but they eat very little amounts, and they usually don’t like eating in front of other people. An example of something one might eat for lunch would be a cup of lettuce and a few slices of cucumbers. They would have very small portions like this for breakfast and dinner as well. An anorexic eats just enough or less than is needed to survive, this is why so many die from this disorder.
This is a very hard disorder to try and overcome alone. Since your entire body is nutrient deficient including your brain. You can’t think properly, your ability to think of a solution or even to fully understand advice given to you will just be ignored and wiped away by thoughts of food. Imagine being hungry and your stomach is growling, the only thing you can think of is food and how bad you want some. Lucky for most people we only get this feeling maybe a couple times a day. Now imagine having this illness, you feel like you’re starving and those thoughts of hunger are constantly on your mind every second of every day. Your brain and entire body are craving food all day long. Even though their fridge and cupboards may be completely full of delicious food and snacks, they restrict themselves to maintain or reach the weight they want to be.
People may ask “Why can’t you just eat more?”
Living with this illness is not a choice, putting a plate of food in front of an anorexic and telling them to eat it is like putting a plate of rat poison in front of a normal person and telling them to eat it. No one will eat the poison because they know it is harmful to their body, anorexics have the same mindset but of regular food, they believe it is harmful to their body in terms of gaining weight. They mentally can not get themselves to physically eat.
Risk Factors that May Cause Anorexia?
- Dieting
- Puberty
- Weight Gain
- Having Depression
- Being a perfectionist
- Family history of Anorexia
- Being in a sport that requires a fit body
- Having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Media and cultures that put a high value on thin bodies
- A traumatic event (ex. death of a loved one/ sexual abuse)
- Age and Gender (Most common in teen and young adult women)
Things that may help someone with Anorexia Nervosa
- Get Professional Help
- Realize and admit to yourself that you are not okay
- Don’t keep it in, talk to your family and friends
- Look for success stories of people on youtube and take their advice
- Challenge your beliefs about food and eating
- Try to find away to change your mindset
- Don’t be in denial about getting treatment
- You have to want to recover to be able to recover and get better
Sean.
Mental Disorderly 