Let's Talk About Anorexia

Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder by which the person affected resticts himself from food for the fear of gaining weight. The person with anorexia also has a strong desire to be thin even through they are in fact underweight.

There are two types of Anorexia:

Binge/Purge Type - The person that suffers from this kind of Anorexia will purge when he eats. As a result of guilt a sufferer will experience in eating. They would compensate it by excessively exercising, abusing laxatives or by vomiting.

Restrictive - With this type of Anorexia, the person will limit the quantity of food intake and will only ingest minimal amount which may be below their body's caloric needs.

This life-threatening disorder is relevant to some teenagers due to some factors; One is severe trauma due to sexual abuse; careers that promote being thin such as modeling; the constant reinforcement from media that thin people are ideal stereotypes; as well as peer pressure among friends to be thin.

For individuals suffering this kind of disorder, they have to be treated both medically and emotionally since they may have developed serious health issues like unstable hearbeat. In terms of treating them emotionally they need to undergo some therapy to be healed from traumatic life events and to learn healthier coping skills to develop their ways of dealing with emotions.