Anorexia NervosaAnorexia nervosa is a mental disorder which results in harmful eating disorders. The main characteristic is a low body weight, below average. The person has a wrong image in his or her mind, an image of being overweight and looking fat while the opposite is true. Anorexia nervosa is a compley psachiatric diseases and the treatment can take many months and is not always successful. In fact, there is a high mortality rate in people suffering from this eating disorder. Anorexic people are obsessive about their body weight to a degree where they do not want to eat at all anymore. This mental disorder is common among young women who seem to admire the thin celebrities but do not have the ability and knowledge to reach such an ideal. The constant fear of gaining weight leads to harmful eating habits, including vomiting or purging and the abuse of weight loss drugs. Recently it was also found that even children in the age of 10 can develop eating disorders. Also more and more young men seem to become a victim of anorexia nervosa or other eating disorders. The reason why anorexia is so dangerous is because it is an mental disease which needs professional treatment over a longer time period. The chances are low that anorexia can be treated without help from third parties. Anorexic people literally starve themselve to death. Serious forms of malnuttrition is just once symptom. Mailfunctioning of organs comes next. In addition, several mental problems add to these symptoms like depression, fear or anxiety, lack of self-confdence and other symptoms. Anorexia is a physically and mentally challenging disease that is difficult to overcome. Treatment consists usually of a mix of psychiatric theraphies with medications. Often the anorexic person is not even aware of suffering from this disorder. It is important that relatives and friends point to the problem when they get aware of it. Aim of the therapy is to gain back normal body weight and restore a healthy and correct self image and eating habits. This step by step approach has the biggest long term success rate. There are no other known and proven ways to treat anorexia nervosa yet.
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