Mental health issue - anorexia nervosa
Anorexia Nervosa is a mental health issue of people who intentionally starve themselves in order to lose weight. People with this condition see themselves as overweight, but are actually bone-thin. Anorexic patients are not aware of their emaciated body, so they refuse to eat and become obsessed with losing weight.
Personally, I would not like to have this disorder because I have seen many anorexic people and it is so scary to me how someone can see themselves as overweight when in reality, they are shrivelling away to nothing. It would be terrifying to not see your own body when you look in the mirror, but see a bigger version, which forces you to not eat to lose that imaginary weight. I get chills when I see people who are so malnourished, but it breaks my heart that they can’t do anything about what they see themselves as.
The signs and symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa are:
• An intense and overwhelming fear of gaining weight or becoming fat
• Poor self-image
• Believes that their body weight, shape and size is directly related to how good they feel about themselves and their worth as a human being.
• Some patients experience absence of menstrual period (amenorrhea)
• Denial of being underweight
• Dieting despite being thin
• Obsession with calories, fat grams, and nutrition
• Pretending to eat or lying about eating
• Preoccupation with food (constantly thinking about food/cooking for others)
• Strange or secretive food rituals
• Dramatic weight loss
• Feeling fat, despite being underweight
• Fixation on body image
• Harshly critical of appearance
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