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Anorexia Nervosa - Anorexia Nervosa Symptom, Cause, Treatment
Anorexia nervosa is a often chronic,serious, and life-threatening eating disorder defined by a refusal to maintain minimal body weight within 15 percent of an individual's normal weight.Anorexia nervosa, typically called anorexia, is a type of eating disorder that mainly affects girls and young women. This may be an underestimate. Anorexia nervosa is an illness that usually occurs in teenage girls, but it can also occur in teenage boys, and adult women and men.
Symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa
The hallmark of anorexia nervosa is a preoccupation with food and a refusal to maintain minimally normal body weight. A person with anorexia will have many of these signs:
- Weight loss of at least 15 per cent below the normal ideal body weight for a person of the same age and height.
- Cessation of periods or delayed development in puberty.
- Self-induced weight loss. Methods can include fasting, low food intake, excessive exercise, diuretic medicines (medicines that make you urinate more) laxatives, diet pills or vomiting. Sometimes people make themselves sick to lose weight. Others take excessive exercise.
- Sufferers have a constant fear of gaining weight, as well as a feeling of being fat, even when their weight is much less than that of other people of the same height.
- Sufferers may feel bloated, even after a small meal.
- They may lose interest in socialising with friends.
- Other side effects include tiredness, feeling cold, constipation and stomachache.
- Some patients also develop additional disorders such as bulimia
Causes of Anorexia Nervosa
The causes of anorexia nervosa is inconclusive, and the causes may be varied. Anorexia is more than just a problem with food. Several things may contribute to the development of the disorder:
- Biological and genetic influences
- Psychological factors
- Family dynamics
- Social pressures
- Cultural and media demands and expectations
- Triggers
- Those suffering from anorexia pursue a very low 'ideal' weight.
- The weight loss may cause hormonal disturbances and women with anorexia nervosa may stop having periods.
Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa
Generally most of the complications experienced by persons with anorexia nervosa are reversible when they restore weight. Some patients of Anorexia Nervosa can be treated as outpatients, but some may need hospitalization to stabilize their dangerously low weight. Weight gain of one to three pounds per week is considered safe and desirable .Treatment aims to:
- Restore the person to a healthy weight.
- Restore healthy eating patterns.
- Treat any physical complications or associated mental health problems.
- Address thoughts, feelings and beliefs concerning food and body image.
- Enlist family support.
- Individual counseling to develop healthy ways of taking control of one's life.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has proved effective in treating bulimia and binge eating disorder. The counseling of choice for anorexia is determined by individual and family circumstances.
- Group counseling to learn how to manage relationships effectively
- Family counseling to change old patterns and create healthier new ones
- Nutrition counseling to debunk food myths and design healthy meals
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