Anorexia Nervosa: A Serious Case of Weight Loss

It is normal to desire to have the perfect weight, but it is abnormal to desire to lose almost 70% of your normal body weight. This is the case of anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia nervosa is a psychological disorder categorized under eating disorders and is characterized by low body weight and body distortion, with an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Anorexic individuals are known to control their body weight to the point of losing almost 70% or more of it. Common ways of how anorexics lose weight are voluntary starvation, purging, and excessive exercise. Anorexia is a condition that goes beyond the concept of out-of-control dieting, and just began with a simple desire to lose weight. The condition primarily affects females and 10% of the diagnosed patients are males.

The term is usually shortened to "anorexia", but this is technically incorrect. Anorexia refers to the medical symptom of reduced appetite, which is non-psychological. Anorexia nervosa was termed such due to the characteristics of the individual to have a reduced appetite and has the fear of food due to the fear of getting fat or gaining weight. So the desire to lose weight develops into more compulsive acts of exercising, purging, and starving one's self.

What are the reasons of an anorexic for such behavior? As of the now, there is no definite cause found for anorexia nervosa. But, research in both the medical and psychological fields are being done to know the possible causes. Psychological experts believe that demands from the society and family could be an underlying cause for anorexia nervosa. Usually, this occurs in the adolescent stage of an individual where self-image is one of the common issues. The desire to become attractive and appealing to the public is one possible driving factor.

Another possible cause is the fear of growing up. Restrictive dieting can prevent the bodies of adolescents to develop normally due to the lack of essential nutrients required for their development. This fear of growing may stem from being too dependent to their parents. The thought that they have to be independent when they become adults scares them in a way that they will be forced to go out of their comfort zones. This way, they wouldn't have to leave their parents and still maintain the parent-child relationship.

Treatment for anorexia nervosa is extremely necessary especially if the individual has already experience severe weight loss. This would result to impaired organ functioning due to the lack of nutrients necessary or needed by the body. During hospitalization, what is important is to focus on the correction of malnutrition. Since the individual refuses to eat food, intravenous feeding is required to give nourishment. But aside from the weight gain treatment, there is a deeper factor that needs treatment. Since this is a psychological disorder, psychotherapy is needed to fully treat this. Individual therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, group therapy and family therapy are sought to be effective in treating anorexia nervosa. The goal of the treatment must be for the individual to accept one's self and lead a physically and emotionally healthy life.