Anorexia: symptoms and treatment
The standards of modern beauty require that every self-respecting girl be thin. But we are all different, with different natural characteristics. Often, in pursuit of beauty, girls drive themselves to exhaustion and earn anorexia.
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Symptoms of anorexia
In desire lose weight Women initially suppress the feeling of hunger, sharply reduce food portions, and eventually give it up altogether. There comes a time when the need to eat causes an irresistible disgust and even vomiting. Even a tiny portion of food for a girl looks like severe overeating. These are all symptoms of a disease called anorexia. It causes many diseases that are associated with impaired from constant fasting metabolism and mental disorders.
You can recognize anorexia by the first signs if you look closely and listen to the girl:
- All the conversations of such girls revolve around the topic of losing weight.
- She refuses high calorie foods.
- Some girls even begin to starve.
- Girls are constantly experiencing depression.
During this period, it is very important to provide the girl with psychological and moral help. If this is not done, then soon the disease will develop further. A woman gradually reduces the amount of not only high-calorie foods, but also foods in general. But the amount of water you drink is increasing all the time. Girls begin to get rid of the food they eat by artificially inducing vomiting. To lose weight faster enemas, diuretics and laxatives are used.
Further inaction leads to the fact that the disease begins to manifest itself on the girl’s appearance. Her skin is thinning loses tone and it peels off all the time. The muscles gradually atrophy, and the subcutaneous fat layer completely disappears. Bones are clearly visible through thinned skin, teeth also suffer and deteriorate, as do hair and nails.
Internal organs begin to undergo changes - blood pressure drops and temperature decreases. The heart and gastrointestinal tract suffer, the woman feels weak, she loses the desire to move at all.
Causes of anorexia
Anorexia can occur as a result of various circumstances. These include nervous disorders, malignant neoplasms, hormonal imbalances and many other ailments. Anorexia, which occurs in mentally ill patients, is caused by their pathological condition. In most cases, the causes of mental anorexia include delusional states, severe depressive disorder, catatonic stupor or schizophrenia.
Anorexia nervosa
Most often, the term “anorexia” refers to a disease that occurs under the influence of a nervous disorder. This type of anorexia occurs for a variety of reasons. But basically they all boil down to the following:
- Unhealthy mental environment in the family. These people cannot exist with each other. Conflicts constantly reign in the family, each of its members is busy only with themselves. Often there are dependent people in the family, for example, those suffering from drug addiction or alcoholism or other addictions. In such families, children are left to their own devices, and then the teenage child develops anorexia.
- Some girls have an incorrect perception of their own body. Such individuals perceive themselves as too fat and ugly. Even if the mirror says completely the opposite. The reason for this behavior lies in low self-esteem - girls consider themselves failures and want to at least get an “ideal” figure.
- Desperate need for love and acceptance. Many plump girls go unnoticed by the opposite sex. Then they begin to lose weight in order to gain the sympathy of other people. And indeed, when girls lose weight, they begin to be interested in them. This positive result is encouraging. In an effort to further consolidate the achievement, girls continue to lose weight, even when the need for this has no longer occurred.
Anorexia in children
Sometimes this serious illness can even develop in children. Usually the reason for this is the parents' overly authoritarian behavior. Parents do not feed the child according to a schedule, usually monotonous food, or overfeed. As a result, the baby cannot eat when he is really hungry and in the amount he would like. Gradually, the child develops a negative attitude towards food in general. Stereotypes and standards of society that promote the cult of thinness contribute.
Symptoms of anorexia in children manifest themselves primarily in sudden weight loss, they do not want to eat and try to eat less. The development of the disease leads to the fact that the child stops gaining height and his body temperature decreases. Children with anorexia get tired quickly and cannot sleep. Externally, the disease manifests itself in split nails, hair loss, and pale skin. Girls stop menstruating.
Changes concern not only the appearance and physical condition of the child, but also the psyche. Children begin to have a negative attitude towards their body, against the background of which a persistent depressive state develops and self-esteem drops. Teenagers try to be alone with themselves and do not communicate with peers. With the further development of the disease, the child develops a persistent negative attitude towards food in general, he is concerned about his own figure and constant weight loss.
How do you get anorexia?
It is generally accepted that anorexia is a purely female disease. At the same time, young women suffer from it. But this is not entirely true. As we noted above, anorexia can also develop in children. And recent studies have revealed cases of anorexia among males.
Most often, anorexia is caused by an unstable psyche and an obsession with losing weight. The disease develops in people with an unstable psyche, who tend to succumb to suggestion and are unable to arrange their personal lives.
This leads to the fact that public opinion begins to dominate common sense. The idea of the equivalence of slimness and beauty turns into mania. Moreover, appearance, beautiful and slim, becomes the key to success. Girls do not understand that photographs and stage images often do not correspond to reality, and they strive to bring to life what they see on the screen.
Treatment of anorexia
It is very difficult to cure this disease. It is much more difficult to treat than other eating disorders. As with other addictions, the success of the treatment undertaken depends entirely on the patient’s awareness of the problem.
Treatment comes down to the following steps:
- First, the doctor develops a therapy that is aimed at restoring physical condition. Body weight is normalized, the consequences of starvation and disorders of internal organs are eliminated.
- Then normal eating habits are gradually formed.
- A person is taught to perceive his body normally.
- The patient is being treated for depression, anxiety and other mental disorders.
- A person is gradually taught to communicate with other people.
It is worth noting that for each patient a specific treatment system is developed individually. This requires the help of qualified specialists. Therefore, you should not hope that relatives, or especially the patient himself, will be able to cure anorexia.
