What Are the Symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa?

Introduction

Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes an eating disorder characterized by low body weight and body image distortion(wikipedia.com). In other words, anorexic people starve themselves to loose a lot of weight, and very quickly. This eating disease is more common in young people around the time of puberty (pyschcental.com). It is a very dangerous disorder that can cause a person to end up in the hospital for a long period of time under intensive treatment. This is a life-threatening eating disorder. The symptoms of anorexia include extreme weight loss, whole body affects and poor self-image.

Weight Loss

Weight loss is obtained by many ways. One way is the intake of laxatives. Also, people with anorexia nervosa usually lose weight by reducing the amount of food that they eat each day and exercising excessively. Many of these people that have the disorder restrict themselves from eating more than 1,000 calories each day. Most try to stay away from fattening foods that are high in calories, and completely eliminate meats from their diets. A person might loose up to fifteen percent in their body weight. Anorexics have a

problem keeping their body weight in a normal range or even above a minimal weight level considered to be healthy.

Body Affects

Anorexia can and will affect every part of your body. Many people think it’s not risky to lose too much weight, because they only see the results on the outside. What they don’t know, is that this disease is quickly traveling all throughout. Let’s see how badly you would be affected if you were diagnosed with anorexia.

It will first affect your brain and nerves. You won’t be able to think right, you’ll be sad, moody, and irritable. You’ll find yourself fainting, and because of the changes in your brain chemistry you will have bad memory.Your hair thins and gets brittle. Your heart will suffer from low blood pressure, slow heart rate, fluttering of the heart (also known as palpitations), and heart failure. You can also get anemia and other blood problems. You will have weak muscles, swollen joints, bone loss, fractures, and even osteoporosis. You could also get kidney stones which would lead to kidney failure. Your body fluids would be low in potassium, magnesium, and sodium. In your intestines, constipation and bloating could occur. Your hormones are also greatly in danger. You will have problems growing. For a woman, her period stops, and will have trouble getting pregnant. If she is pregnant, she will have a higher risk for miscarriage, having a C-section, a baby born with low birth weight, and post partum depression. Worst of all, the outside of your body will start showing malnutrition in the skin. You will bruise

easily, have dry skin, growth of fine hair all over body, you’ll get cold easily, have yellow skin, and nails will get brittle.

I could continue listing more body affects, but that’s something that the doctors are trying to study with more detail.

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