Some common facts about anorexia nervosa, more commonly known as “anorexia”, is that it is a psychiatric eating illness characterized by tremendously low body weight coupled with the excessive fear of gaining weight. People suffering from this kind of eating sickness are commonly known as “anorexics”.
Anorexics starve themselves by insistently limiting the amount of food they consume because of the extreme fear of becoming fat. Their eating habits originate from this fear, especially women and adolescent girls. As such, the after effect is that these people turn out to be very thin and their weight is usually over 15 percent below their normal body weight.
Anorexics, although they are thin and skeletal, believe that they are overweight. Driven by this fear, they do tiresome workouts and exercises. Some even consume laxatives and do not eat or drink anything within any given day. Even though they have grown to be thin overall, they still have the mindset that they have gained weight.
There are cases of people becoming very ill and in some cases, the anorexic even goes through a near death experience. People suffering from anorexia in general are amongst the top level of society and people occupying professions that call for thinness or being skinny, like dancing and theater acting.
Anorexics often develop bizarre eating practices and they usually refuse to eat in other people’s company. Some of these anorexics will eat a full meal, and then afterwards, force themselves to vomit everything they have consumed. Most of them limit themselves to less than 500 calorie intake per day while turning down any kind of food with fat or sugar in it. These anorexics also have a penchant to overuse laxatives or water pills so that they won’t put on even a quarter of a pound of weight.
Anorexia can be diagnosed by comparing the weight of a person to the expected weight of another person of the same sex, age, height and weight. Once these differences in the margin of weight and other factors are noted, further tests will be initiated, like heart and lung checks, blood pressure monitoring, and skin and hair assessment. There may also be additional tests concerning the blood and even X-rays.
Once anorexia nervosa is detected, the treatment for it needs to begin immediately. As of today, there are no known medicines to take care of this kind of eating disorder, but that does not mean it cannot be cured. Since it is both a type of physical and emotional problem, the primary step to anorexia help is to understand the problem.
Know the different facts about anorexia first by consulting a dietitian, a doctor, and a counselor. These people will help anorexics get through this kind of illness through therapy and other forms of guidance and instructions.
Therapy is typically the first form of treatment for anorexia, but can get quite expensive and is, quite frankly, a crapshoot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. But there is a home management program available that has helped numerous anorexics and is endorsed by leading physicians.
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Tags: anorexia, Anorexia Nervosa
