Anorexia

Anorexia

Anorexia is an eating disorder characterized by extreme weight loss and lack of eating.  Anorexics may also exercise obsessively in order to avoid gaining weight.  Anorexia affects many more women than men.  It is a very serious condition and can result in death if it is not treated properly (p.12). Eating disorders are characterized by physical and psychological harmful eatingpatterns (p.60-66); these patterns are categorized as “Behavior Syndromes” associated with psychological disturbances and psychical factors.

Anorexia Nervosa means nervous loss of appetite, there are many contributing factors, however, for the anorexic person it does not mean loss of interest in food, it is quite the opposite (p.4-20). For the anorexic they restrict their food intake as there is afear of being overweight and not being able to lose the weight. This can lead to factors such as depression and anxiety with usually co-exist with eating disorders. Every year millions of people are affected by serious and sometimes life-threatening eating disorders, what would be the symptoms, the causes and how can this be evaluated from different medical perspectives.

Eating disorders is avery complex problem caused by a number of factors, the exact cause is unknown however it could be due to the family and cultural pressures for the trapped person this could be their only way of controlling their life. A traumatic event could have happened, this could be rape, first sexual experience, rejection and death of a parent or partner, the problem could have been with the person for years orit could be a recent event. There are many surrounding factors to an eating disorder such as the media how it portrays the image this as beautiful. Many anorexics do have an image of what they would like to look like yet they never seem to reach that goal (p.98).

A person who has a low self-esteem usually feels useless and valueless, despite achievements in his life, and he doesn’t like theway he looks. These feelings cause the individual to feel rejection and an alleged pressure from society. It is usually that you feel stressed and worried when you are working under pressure, or it is common that you suffer nervousness as a consequence of experiencing life changes. These situations begin to affect your schedule and you stop doing some vital activities to stay healthy. In the case ofanorexia, a person begins to stop eating in the right times or even stop eating. It is very common that some societies consider that the ideal beauty is based in extreme thinness. Nowadays, this idea has caused thousands of women and men to go on starvation diets or use products that supposedly make them lose weight in few days.

For the anorexic person it is the pursuit of thinness the warningsigns and symptoms start when the person refused to maintain a body weight correct for age and height. In women the periods begin to stop for a child it stops the process of puberty at an early age however for men the sex levels fall. Anorexics see a distorted body image; their view of the body is the opposite of what everyone else sees. It starts off with being slightly overweight and turns intoa disorder. Anorexics tend to view their body as fat and oversized in areas such as stomach. For the anorexic person they tend to way themselves constantly and check in mirrors (p.5-6); some are even obsessed with exercising. Anorexia is a form of starving yourself. You deny your body nutrients it needs to be healthy. You force your body to slow down in order to preserve energy. When you forceyour body to slow down, you put yourself at very serious risk. The risk includes risk of death. When you deprive your body of nutrients, you may cause any of the following dangerous consequences like for example low blood pressure, changes in the heart muscle, anemia, your periods may stop, changes in your bones. They lose density; this is called osteoporosis and tends for your bones to break more...