Anorexia

One of the common eating disorders prevalent in the society today, anorexia nervosa is a condition in which a person has intense fear of putting on weight. Some of the other prominent characteristics of the disease include extreme low body weight and body image distortion. A psychiatric illness, anorexia makes a person limit his/her food intake and long to become severely thin. Such people voluntarily starve themselves, which, at times, also leads to death. Anorexia is mostly seen in adolescent females, but males cannot be ruled out of the illness completely.

Low self-esteem, Biochemical factors, Psychiatric disorders, Social pressures, Genetic predisposition, Life transitions, Perpetuating factors, Stress and strain, Emotional disturbances, Chemical imbalance in the brain.

Refusal to eat, Insomnia, Distortion of body image, Excessive importance placed on body composition or shape, Denial of seriousness of low weight, Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even if the person is considered underweight, Ritualistic eating (including cutting food into a planned number of bites) , Paying great attention to nutrition labels, Amenorrhea or interruption of the menstrual cycle , Bone loss (osteoporosis or osteopenia), Extra sensitivity to cold, Bloated stomach after eating (since the stomach loses its ability to deal with a normal quantity of food at one sitting) , Irregular heart rhythms.