What is Anorexia?

A “No-Bite” Definition Trivializes a Serious Eating Disorder

The word anorexia is simply defined as “a loss of appetite”, a definition that is an extremely mild characterization of a very severe, often chronic, life-threatening, and frequently fatal disease. In truth, the anorexic individual develops an obsessive and intense fear of weight gain that results in an aversion to food and an over zealous commitment to losing weight.

Anorexia

The anorexic may exhibit symptoms either through refusing to eat or through purging himself or herself through self-induced vomiting after meals. One of the hallmarks of the disease is that the anorexic continues to diet beyond the point of danger. It is estimated that from 6% to as high as 20% of anorexics die from complications associated with their illness. Typically, the disease isn’t diagnosed as anorexia until after the individual has lost over 15% of his or her normal body weight. In many cases the diagnoses is too late to quench the illness.

Walking the Thin Line

Anorexia is one of many eating disorders that are most often seen in the more affluent countries of the world. The disorder is thought to be most common among Caucasians, people of high socio-economic classes, and those involved in activities where thinness is especially admired. Most often diagnosed in adolescent girls, it can also occur in young men. Several cases have even been noted in adults spanning an age range from 20 to 80 years old.

Although a definitive cause for anorexia has yet to be determined experts generally agree that several character traits are often apparent in anorexics. The anorexic is typically a perfectionist, seen by his or her friends and family as a hard-working, compliant person who strives to conform to society’s general trends. Among these trends is the glorification of slender people, exhibited in fashion, advertising, and catch phrases like “Thin is in”. Unrealistic social values serve to reinforce the anorexic’s obsession with weight loss and promote his or her dangerously obsessive dietary practices.

At one time, anorexia was considered by many to be only a behavioral disease. However, recent studies indicate that at least a partial cause of the illness may be genetic, due to the fact that many families have more than one member who develops the disease.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Anorexia is an insidious disease that often begins with a perfectly normal diet in an attempt to lose “baby fat”. After several months of progressive weight loss, the anorexic still considers herself or himself to be grossly overweight, no matter what the individual’s present weight is and exhibits an intense fear of gaining weight. Even those who are near death often still reject food, rationalizing their behavior by pinpointing areas of their bodies that they believe to be overweight.

Anorexia, like other eating disorders, frequently occurs in combination with other problems like drug or alcohol abuse and/or physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, Symptoms may be displayed in suicide attempts and other self-destructive behaviors such as self-mutilation.

Usually diagnosed as anorexia nervosa, an offshoot of the illness is sometimes called anorexia athletica, an unofficial term that is used to describe anorexia in those who engage in compulsive exercising to lose weight. Although all anorexics have an intense fear of becoming fat, those with anorexia athletica are often involved in activities where thinness is nearly a prerequisite, such as dancing, gymnastics, theater, distance running and other sports and physical careers. Anorexia athletica may be even more difficult to diagnose since the combination of diet and exercise may cause friends and family to assume the individual is healthy.

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