What is Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is a type of eating disorder which can be characterized mainly by lack of food taking, emaciation or thinness in addition to strong unwillingness to maintain a healthy weight. The individual affected with anorexia attemps to continue an endless cycle of restrictive eating often to a point close to starvation with a view to feeling a sense of control over the body. Some symptoms that can indicate anorexia nervosa include brittle hair and nails, dry and yellowish skin, muscle weakness, mild anemia, low blood pressure, severe constipation, slowed breathing and pulse, cardiovascular complications, drop in internal body temperature which causes a person to feel cold all the time, lethargy, and so on.

Altogether the symptoms cause a impaired physical development. Many people with anorexia also have coexisting psychiatric and physical illnesses, including depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, neurological complications. People with anorexia find themselves overweight, even when they are starving or distinctly suffering from malnutrition. Food and weight control become obsessions to them. Some people with anorexia try to lose weight by dieting and exercising excessively and others try that by self-induced vomiting, applying diuretics (substances to increase urine flow) or so on to release some material or calories from their body.