Anorexia is an eating disorder, medically called anorexia nervosa. A person with this disease has no desire to maintain a healthy weight, but instead diets and/or exercises to extreme measures. The anorexic has a distorted view of how she looks, claiming she is too fat. Usually the person is unaware of the problem, therefore it is important for parents or friends to recognize the signs of anorexia. With proper medical help, the anorexic can recover and maintain a healthy lifestyle, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Extreme Weight Loss
The anorexic will diet to excess, losing not only fat but valuable muscle as well. She will look undernourished and unhealthy to others but not to herself. Along with this, she will refuse to try and maintain a healthy weight.
Fear of Weight Gain
Part of the disease is a fear of gaining weight to the point of being obsessed with food types and portions. Great efforts will be taken to avoid gaining weight, even when undernourished.
Excessive Exercise
Often the person with anorexia will take on exercise regimes that go beyond the normal workout. In an effort to become thinner, he may choose to lose weight through the expenditure of calories by working out many times per day. "Injury, illness, an outing with friends, bad weather--none of these will deter those who compulsively exercise," according to doctors at Kids Health from The Nemours Foundation.
Distorted View of Body Image
The anorexic can look in the mirror and not see herself as too thin. Instead, she will see herself as fat. She will not understand that a very low body weight can be dangerous and even fatal. "The death rate for anorexia is higher than for any other psychiatric illness," according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa.
Constipation
Without the necessary food intake or fiber in the diet, anorexics can sometimes have problems with constipation. This may even prompt the use of laxatives, resulting in the loss of vital minerals, vitamins, electrolytes and further weight loss.
Feeling Cold all the Time
Our bodies need fuel to produce energy in the cells. With a lack of food, the cells do not have the necessary nutrients, so metabolism slows to conserve what little fat reserves remain and the anorexic will feel as if he can not get warm. The body reacts as if it has gone into starvation mode.
No Menstrual Period
If she has missed three periods in a row, the effects of under eating are having an effect on the hormone activity, further indicating that the body is being starved of valuable nutrition, as noted by the National Institutes of Health.
Preoccupation With Food
An anorexic has an unhealthy preoccupation with food, thinking about what to eat, what not to eat, how and where to eat. He seems to think about food all the time. He may even prepare large amounts of food for others and avoid eating it.
Eating Rituals
Often the anorexic will have some kind of eating ritual, such as only eating alone, eating only certain foods, cutting food into small pieces, moving food around on the plate, or even going to the bathroom after eating.
Use of Diet Aids
It is not uncommon for someone with anorexia to take pills in an effort to lose weight. This can be either diet pills to keep from eating too much or diuretics to lose water weight. She may even take laxatives to eliminate weight gain, further endangering her health.
