Essay, Research Paper: Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia nervousa is an eating disorder that can lead to death if not taken care of. Anorxics are generally young women from the ages of 12 to21 that have distorted body images. They see themselves as fat even if they are extremely underweight. anorexia is characterized by starvation, and dieting. Anorexia is a mental illness where there is a fear of eating and gaining weight . Most anoerexics are at least 15% below there normal body weight. Anorexia is also characterized by the insufficiant amount of calories from food.
Most anorexic's are young women just entering puberty. These young girls are scared of gaining weight and the reshaping of the body ( development of hips and breasts). To keep from gaining weight these girls go on strict diets to control their weight. Most of the people affected by this disease have the same type of history. They seem to be to-good -to -be- true. They are perfectionists with goal oriented personalities. They hardly ever disobey and keep there feelings to themselves. They are generally good students and very good atheletes. Male anorexics may develop this disease because they are insecure with themselves. But all anorexics suffer from low self-esteem and bad feelings about themselves. Anorexia is also a genitic disease. If you are in a family with a close relative that has this disorder you would have a better chance of becomming anorexic.
Most Anorexia is triggered by something making the person think that they are not thin. In some cases there is a comment made about the gaining of weight and change in body form. This comment is normally made by the father of the family. It can also develop in the fear of the changing of the body. It might also be triggered by a quick look in the mirror. This would make the person e realize that there body has changed and this could create a need for the person to diet. It also could be caused by a tramatic life change such as divorce, death, seperation, breaking up with a girl of boyfriend or beginning collage. It could also be caused by the need to impress someone. The starting in a new school could trigger this. In young men it could be triggered by a diet used to lose weight to overcome obesity or make himself attractive to others.
Anorexia can become a socially isolating disease, even though one of the things that starts it is the need to be accepted by there peers. Normally the person becomes socially inactive the year beforehand. They push away from friends or friends push away from them. The people take on a prudish atitude and this makes people and friend push away. The other people might want to go and party or date but the person with anorexia will not want to. The person will say that the other people could not possibly live up to there expectations. This will make the person start to controll their food intake to keep up with the things that are going on around them. It gives them a sense of control.
The perfact example of an anorexic person a runner who may want to lose a couple pounds. She may like the new found skinniness. This may make the person stop eating all together. The person may start skipping meals and cut out full food groups from the diet. This could mean that the person would stop eating all fat or carbohydrates. This would cause people to be tired and get mononucleosis and other diseases. The immune system would be weakened, so it would be hard to fight agains t the flu or a simple cold. Some other diseases that can develop from anorexia are kidney and heart faliure and also cardiovascular disease.
Some symptoms of this illness are weight lose of 25% or greater, cold introerance, constipation, the loss of the women's menstaration period, the deterioration of skeletal muscles, the loss of fatty tissue, a loe blood pressure, cavities in the teeth, increased suseptiablity to illnesses, blotchy and yellowish tinted skin, dry hair and the loss of it, and severe depression. Another thing that developes from anorexia is the redistrobution of fat. In weight loss of more than 70% when weight is added to the body it goes into the area of the pelvis or the chest. It makes the person take on a apple or pear shaped body. These problems cause heart and kidney infections. These cause kidney stones and decreased heart rate. These are both death. Some tests that can be given to test for anorexia are chem-20, urinalysis, and ECG's. Since anorexia hurts other systems it is also ok to test the endocrine, metabolic, and central nervous systems for abnormalities.


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