Some common facts about anorexia nervosa, more frequently known as “anorexia”, is that it is a psychiatric eating illness characterized by tremendously low body weight coupled with the excessive fear of gaining weight. People suffering from this kind of eating sickness are commonly known as “anorexics”.
Anorexics starve themselves by insistently limiting the amount of food they eat because of the extreme fear of becoming fat. Their eating habits begin from this fear, especially women and adolescent girls. As such, the after effect is that these people become very thin and their weight is usually over 15 percent below their average body weight.
Anorexics, although they are thin and skeletal, believe that they are overweight. Driven by this fear, they do tedious workouts and exercises. Some even take laxatives and do not eat or drink anything within any given day. Even though they have grown to be thin overall, they still have the mindset that they have gained weight.
There are cases of people becoming extremely ill and in some cases, the anorexic even goes through a near death experience. People suffering from anorexia in general are among the top level of society and people occupying professions that call for thinness or being skinny, like dancing and theater acting.
Anorexics often develop bizarre eating practices and they normally refuse to eat in other people’s company. Some of these anorexics will eat a full meal, and then afterwards, force themselves to vomit everything they have eaten. Most of them limit themselves to less than 500 calorie intake per day while refusing any kind of food with fat or sugar in it. These anorexics also have a penchant to overuse laxatives or water pills so that they won’t put on even a quarter of a pound of weight.
Anorexia can be diagnosed by comparing the weight of a person to the likely weight of another person of the same sex, age, height and weight. Once these differences in the margin of weight and other factors are noted, additional tests will be initiated, like heart and lung checks, blood pressure monitoring, and skin and hair assessment. There may also be additional tests concerning the blood and even X-rays.
Once anorexia nervosa is detected, the treatment for it needs to begin right away. As of today, there are no known medicines to take care of this kind of eating disorder, but that does not mean it cannot be cured. Since it is both a type of physical and emotional problem, the initial step is to understand the problem.
Know the various facts about anorexia first by consulting a dietitian, a doctor, and a counselor. These people will help anorexics get through this type of illness through counseling and other forms of guidance and instructions.
Therapy is usually the first form of treatment for anorexia, but can get quite expensive and is, quite frankly, a crapshoot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. But there is a home management program available that has helped numerous anorexics and is endorsed by leading physicians.
The best online “self help” program I can recommend for anorexia is by Karen Phillips, a mom who treated her daughter from terrible anorexia and bulimia by herself. She wrote a book about the method “Mom Please Help.” Read her story and you will understand her anquish and learn how she overcame it. Click Here for More Info