Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder that most commonly targets teenagers from their earlier years on to women in their mid twenties. Anorexia nervosa is one of the most dangerous out of all the eating disorders because it works so quickly and is all-consuming. As with all other eating disorders, the disorder is all consuming, with anorexia nervosa it is more severe because the sufferer is already underweight or in the emaciated weight range, which can lead to death sooner rather than later. Sufferers of anorexia nervosa are underweight and feel that they are fat. This leads them to embark on a strict diet, ultimately eating to little or no consumption of food, and excessive exercising.
Sufferers of anorexia nervosa are severely underweight but see themselves as overweight and imperfect. The ultimate perfection for an anorexic is nothing but skin and bones: even a small percentage of body fat is unacceptable to an anorexic. It is not uncommon to see an anorexic wearing baggy clothing to hide excessive weight loss. Sufferers of anorexic nervosa also are very pale and their lips can have a slight blue or purple undertone, while the eye will begin to look deep set and dark.
The eating patterns of an anorexic may become obsessive compulsive. Food may be cut into a million pieces, foods of certain colors cannot touch each other, they have to eat in a clockwise or counterclockwise way, or they cannot eat if it is not a certain time of the day. Although these eating patterns may seem absurd to people who are not familiar with anorexia nervosa, these patterns are quite common amongst the sufferers of anorexia. Anorexics are often perfectionists and suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, have perfectly neat and orderly bedrooms and homes, earn straight A’s and are members of several after school clubs and activities.
Symptoms of anorexia:
• Sudden interest in baggy clothing
• Drastically underweight
• Sudden weight loss
• Odd eating patterns
• Discomfort in social situations
• Discomfort around food
• Loss of menstrual cycle