Month: March 2021

Anorexia is an eating disorder with psychological inflections. Anorexia usually affects young girls and women, with fewer incidences found in men. Anorexia begins at the onset of puberty in girls. Those suffering from anorexia starve themselves because they fear eating may make them fat. As a consequence of this self-imposed starvation, weight loss is common in anorexics. Weight loss without any pathological cause makes anorexics very skinny, and yet they feel they are very fat.

This unfounded apprehension of becoming fat further complicates the anorexic’s state of health, since they compromise more and more on the quantity of food intake. Chronic anorexics refuse to eat, even if they are severely ill or about to die.

It has been observed that this disorder is more prevalent in whites than in blacks. It is normally found among artists whose body weight may impair their artistic performances in one way or another, like theatre artists, dancers, distance runners, and singers. People from high socioeconomic groups are the most affected.

A number of factors are responsible for causing anorexia. These factors stem from biological to cultural underpinnings and causes related to lifestyle to familial dispositions. Biological factors may be related to certain unwanted hormonal changes in the body. Cultural factors could be related to certain cultures’ penchants for looking good, which is true for some women in America. A stressful lifestyle can be another reason to trigger bouts of anorexia; there could also be a genetic link.

Medical risks associated with anorexia are bone mineral loss, altered heartbeats, stunted growth, low body temperature, brittle bones or osteoporosis, as well as another related condition called bulimia nervosa. Anorexia can also result in reduced body immunity and consequently serious illnesses.

Anorexics can be treated, but the treatment is more based on a patient’s own understanding of the dangers of not eating rather than on therapeutic drugs inducing hunger. Anorexics, if not treated, die earlier.

Different types of anorexia affect as many as 5% of all young women in the United States, and three times the percentage are women who have unhealthy attitudes and behaviors about food. Reports have indicated that in women who suffer from anorexia, the onset of the disorder can be traced back to the age of twenty. When a study surveyed sixth-grade female students, it revealed that 70% of them became weight conscious between the ages of nine and eleven. This trend, revealed in the same study, led these girls to start dieting by the time they were in were in middle school.

Other studies have indicated that that males account for approximately 5% to 10% of patients with anorexia nervosa and 10% to 15% of patients with bulimia nervosa. Possible risk factors for the development of eating disorders in males include homosexuality, dieting, participation in a sport that emphasizes thinness, and a premorbid history of obesity. Differences from eating disorders in females include onset of bulimia at a later age and a higher prevalence of premorbid obesity. But, in all, anorexia in males is far less common than in females, often resulting in clinicians overlooking the possibility of the disorder. Nevertheless, however small the size may be, approximately 1 million American boys and men are grappling with eating disorders.

Of all the anorexics, 86% report onset of illness by the age of twenty, 43% between ages of sixteen and twenty, 33% between ages of eleven and fifteen, 10% at ten years or younger. The statistics are alarming, and it is believed that over someone’s lifetime, at least 50,000 individuals will die as a direct result of their eating disorders. If not treated, up to 20% of them will die as a result of serious eating disorders; and if treated, the occurrence of death can be reduced to as little as 2% to 3%.

Anorexia and bulimia are two different sides of the same coin. While anorexia is often apparent, bulimia is secretive. While anorexics starve themselves for fear of putting on weight, bulimia patients indulge first in overeating, often in isolation, and then induce vomiting; they overuse diuretics and laxatives and indulge in excessive exercise and fasting.

As bulimia progresses in patients, 30% to 80% vacillate between anorexia and bulimia; this is a condition that is known as bulimarexia. Bulimia is considered to be genetic in nature and often results in increased incidence of mood disorders and substance abuse, mainly diuretics and laxatives. Of all bulimia patients, 33% indulge in substance abuse. Generally considered perfectionists, bulimia patients show affective instability, poor impulse control, impaired self-concept, and developmental stresses.

Bulimia patients indulge in binge eating, and often eat larger than average portions within just two hours of previously eating. In order to prevent weight gain, they induce vomiting, fasting, excessive exercise, and use laxatives and purgatives. Those who induce vomiting are called purging types and those who don’t are called nonpurging types.

What differentiates anorexics from bulimics is the presence of signs as caries, pyorrhea, and gum disorders in bulimics on account of gastric acid erosion of the tooth enamel, most commonly on the lingual surfaces of the upper teeth. These erosions are irreversible.

Both anorexics and bulimics have excessive preoccupations with body weight, shape, and/or food intake, which is accompanied by grossly inadequate, irregular, or chaotic food intake. Anorexics are normally very hungry but starve themselves since they have a strong aversion to food. Bulimics, on the other hand, have no aversion to food, but have fear of what it might lead to: excessive body weight. Both, however, have the same result – ill health.

Unfortunately, many people do not understand what anorexia nervosa is and how serious it can be. It is an eating disorder that can be life threatening and is seen in individuals who have a fear of gaining weight. These individuals often weigh more than 15% less than what they should weigh and do so by eating very little. Some anorexics will eat and then vomit to eliminate what they have eaten.

Anorexic individuals usually have low self-esteem, are depressed and have a very distorted image of their bodies. In other words, no matter how thin they are, in their minds they are fat. The disease usually begins either before or just after puberty. Young girls seem to be the ones who suffer the most from this illness, but it can and increasingly is affecting both sexes of all ages. It is believed that younger women suffer the most because society dictates that ‘thin is in,’ and the message can be found everywhere including magazines, movies, television, etc. They will do anything to be thin, and have no idea of the consequences involved when anorexia sets in.

The effects of anorexia are devastating and include damage to the heart and brain due to lack of nutrients. The longer the disease goes on, the more likely that a person’s pulse rate and blood pressure will drop dramatically causing irregular heart rhythms or heart failure. The bones lacking the proper nutrients tend to become brittle and often break, and many people reach a point where they actually starve to death. Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate among psychiatric illnesses with a six percent death rate among its victims.