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Anorexia Nervosa

What is an eating disorder? Any disorder that impacts normal eating behavior, overeating, anorexia, and bulimia are examples of eating disorders. We are going to talk about an eating disorder that deals with starvation and excessive weight loss. The most well known disorder is called Anorexia Nervosa. It usually affects girls and women in early to mid adolescence. The most frequent symptoms of this diseaseare fear of gaining weight, wanting lose weight, thinking you are fat when you are not and not admitting that you are very thin and loss of menstrual periods.

This is a serious disease and professional help is needed. Not getting the help you need can cause permanent damage to your heart, bones, muscles and kidneys. If you lose too much weight you can die in fact 5-25% of people suffering from anorexia nervosa will die. It has one of the highest death rates of any mental health disease.

Another common eating disorder is bulimia and binge eating. Often a person will eat of a lot of food (binge) and then will purge or get rid of the food by making themselves vomit, excessive exercise or the use of laxatives. People will think about food and their weight all the time. There are often frequent trips to the bathroom and a smell of vomit on their breath. Their teeth may be discolored from the stomach acids. This is also a very dangerous condition. There is an imbalance in their blood chemistry which can cause heart problems. About 1-2% of young women suffer from this. About 80% of those affected are women. This is much harder to diagnose as they are often a normal weight.

• "Anorexia Nervosa." National Eating Disorders. 2 Mar. 2008. <http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/>.
• "Bulimia Nervosa." National Eating Disorders. 2 Mar. 2008 <http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/>.