Anorexia

Anorexia nervosa is a mental illness associated with an eating disorder. The affected persons, mostly girls and young women, perceive their body as too fat (body schema disorder) and try pathologically to control their body weight. By reducing the amount of food they eat to a minimum and sometimes doing a lot of sport they reduce their body weight dramatically.

Their thoughts constantly revolve around food and their weight. In addition to anorexia, bulimia can also be added to the clinical picture, which is characterized by systematic vomiting after eating. In addition to the undersupply of the body, which weakens it enormously, anorexia can also lead to serious heart defects and hormonal imbalances.

The therapy of an eating disorder, which is usually carried out in a child and adolescent psychiatric institution, can be very difficult. Often the patients must first be made to show insight into the disease. Forced feeding by means of a stomach tube is not uncommon.

It almost always requires long-term therapy before a cure can really be spoken of. However, the results are good. Most patients are no longer affected by the disease in young adulthood.

Transition to an eating disorder

The urge to lose body weight can be quite normal if you were previously overweight. The person does not feel comfortable in their body and therefore wants to lose a few kilograms. Up to the normal weight, which can be calculated on the basis of the BMI, a weight reduction is completely legitimate and even desirable from a health point of view.

However, if the weight loss continues even after reaching normal weight, or if a person of normal weight has the urge to lose a lot of weight, an eating disorder could possibly be present.The pathological process usually begins with a detailed listing of all the food consumed, which allows an exact overview of the calories consumed. Meals in company are increasingly rejected, often only talking about the fact that food was eaten. Patients who can already be described as such consciously avoid “fattening” foods.

Initially, the worrying development is not noticed, especially by people close to them. The patients do not feel thereby usually as too thin, why only those at least persons, who are affected by an eating disorder, look for independently assistance and go into a therapy against their eating disorder. The transition from a diet to a massive eating disorder happens insidiously, but the persons usually have a shifted self-perception before.