What is Anorexia Nervosa?
This is a condition that usually affects young women who are either entering high school or college. Significantly, they are entering high school or college because this is the time when a young woman has a change in her life. Entering high school is traumatic, yet exciting. Entering college is the same thing.
Usually what happens is that a young woman gets a distorted image of herself. She imagines herself as “fat” although she is not. In some cases, the young woman may have a little bit of “baby fat” and is on the verge of puberty. Somewhere along the line, someone calls her “fat” and she begins to diet to lose weight.
A lot of people diet to look slender – this does not make them anorexic. But an anorexic takes it too far. She likes the way she looks. She enjoys the way the weight comes off and, more importantly, likes the control she now has over her body.
Anorexia’s control illusion
While other people diet and then stop, an anorexic is suffering from a mental disorder. Her desire to control a situation, not usually related to her weight, will spur her to continue to diet. She will love this feeling of control so much that she will imagine herself to be fat when the mirror tells her that she is anything but fat. Often, when a young woman first starts to lose weight, her friends will tell her how good she looks. Then they will tell her she lost too much weight. Soon, she looks like a walking skeleton and her friends are telling her to eat. But she does not listen as she still sees rolls of fat in the mirror.
Anorexia Nervosa is a mental disorder that affects millions of people, mostly young women. Some famous people who suffered from this disease include Tracey Gold, John Lennon, Mary Kate Olson, and Karen Carpenter. Sadly, Karen Carpenter died from the disease.
Untreated anorexia consequences
If untreated, a person with this disorder will continue to diet until their organs shut down. In the case of Karen Carpenter, the constant dieting and anorexia took its toll on her. Although she was getting better with the disease, it had weakened her heart so much that she ended up dying of heart failure at the age of 32. Tracy Gold was more fortunate and ended up beating her disease and then going on to talk about it so that other young women did not end up the same way. Mary Kate Olson is still battling the disease. John Lennon was said to suffer from a mild form of Anorexia after some reporter nicknamed him “the Fat Beatle.”
Anorexia, like many other mental disorders, stems from insecurity about your appearance and is enhanced by the desire to control an environment where you feel you have little control. Behavior therapy is needed in the case of those suffering from this disease and sometimes hospitalization is also needed to get them the nutrition that they need to survive.
