Anorexia Nervosa :: essays research papers

Anorexia nervosa is one of many types of eating disorders that is influenced by the media, dieting programs, low-carb and fat free foods, and by the obsession to be thin. These influences make the person insecure, tense, and narrow-minded. Anorexia nervosa is when a person demonstrates abnormal eating pattern and loses severe weight, usually fifteen percent of his or her body weight. It is also a complicated mixture of emotional, psychological, and physical changes, it is often referred to as â€Å" the starvation sickness† or â€Å"the dieter’s disease† (Kirkpatrick). The disease is not a newly discovered medical problem. The basic of the illness were documented at least three years ago by an English physician named Thomas Morton. According to Morton, he considered the disease â€Å"nervous consumption† and believed that it was caused by â€Å"sadness and care†. He used the term â€Å"consumption† to describe the marked weight, and he called it â€Å"nervous† because he could not explain the severe weight loss (Kirkpatrick). To be diagnosis with the illness anorexia nervosa the person weight must be at least fifteen percent lower than normal for his or her height and age. The person has a great fear of becoming overweight and the person has an image that his or her body is overweight when it’s in fact underweight and/or the person refuse to admit the weight loss is a serious problem. And an important medical criteria for females in diagnosing the illness, is the absence of at least three or more consecutive menstrual periods (Kirkpatrick). The beginning of the illness often follows some stressful life events that have occurred in the person life. Low self-esteem is often the cause of these stresses. Most of the peoples who are anorexic began with some form of diet to lose weight. When the weight loss becomes visible to their own eyes, and to the eyes of others he or she begin to enjoy his or her special ability to master his or her hunger and control his or her life by continuing to diet without realizing the emotional an physical changes it’s causing to his or her body and mind. And that is how the majority of peoples who are diagnosis with the illness became anorexic (American). The facts about anorexia nervosa and dieting are that full-blown anorexia nervosa is a rare disease and only about ten percent of the cases occur in men. It’s limited to the developed world because in the developing world anorexia is mainly unheard of.