Anorexia

Definition

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that involves a loss of weight caused by the patient. It is characterized by the fear of gaining weight and a distorted perception of one's body that makes the patient look fat even when their weight is below the recommended. Thus begins aprogressive decrease in weight by fasting and reduced food consumption.

Types of anorexia

There are two subtypes of anorexia nervosa according to DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)


Restrictive: It is characterized in that the patient tries to reduce weight doing diet and practicing physical exercise. Not make themselves throw up or use of medications toaccelerate the action of the diet.

Purgative: In addition to diet and exercise, those affected by this mode is self-induced vomiting. Often this practice is disseminated to friends or to copy from television series. Also consume various medications that supposedly can help in reducing weight.

Causes

The real reason that causes this disorder is unknown. There are many theories to explain itsappearance; the psychological aspects are primarily involved. It has been suggested that the cause of anorexia nervosa should not be sought in a single factor but a combination of certain personality traits, emotional and thought patterns, biological, social and family.

• Genetic factors - The importance of genetic factors is given by the contributions of different studies that haveshown that there is a 70% diagnostic concordance when analyzed medical records of identical twins. These figures are reduced to only 20% when it comes to non-identical twins. Genetic susceptibility may be due not to a single gene, but the interaction between different genes.


• Biochemical factors - Several publications have shown that may exist in anorexia nervosa excessively highlevels of a brain neurotransmitter serotonin. It is believed that serotonin is involved in the biochemical mechanisms that control satiety.


• Psychological factors - It has been argued that most patients have a personality before the onset of the disease, characterized by a tendency to perfectionism, low self esteem and obsessive personality. Moreover, the image that a person has ofitself can be a risk factor if it is negative.


• Interpretation psychoanalyst. Psychoanalyst's interpretation that places special emphasis on youth is not able to separate psychologically from the mother figure and that starvation would avoid the unconscious meaning of growth.


• Family problems. Problems within the family may be a causal factor of the deviations of feedingbehavior. The influence of authority or lack thereof of a parent or another member of the family unit, may cause harmful responses or behaviors.
• Social factor. It has been proposed by different researchers, the influence it can have on the genesis of anorexia nervosa female body model, extremely thin, which is taken as the standard of beauty in different audiovisual media. The strongassociation of thinness with beauty and its use as a prototype of the ideal model to which all women should approximate, may play a role whose importance has not yet been accurately determined at the onset of the disease. This influence is less powerful in the case of man, as the male model is usually represented with greater muscle mass and therefore less thin. Additionally, people with eatingdisorders tend to have social problems or have a history of being teased about their size or weight.





Treatment
The most important thing is that the person recognizes that anorexia
nervous. Treatment goals include restoring the person to a healthy weight, deal with emotional issues such as low self-esteem correct distorted thinking patterns and develop behavioral changes over time....