How to Overcome Anorexia

Anorexia The author of this report has been charged with covering and summarizing the eating disorder known as anorexia nervosa, or anorexia for short. Along with bulimia, they are the two most prominent and nasty eating disorders that exist among the people of the world. While women are more commonly associated with anorexia, men can develop it as well.

What will be covered in this report has it pertains to anorexia will include what it is, who identified and discovered it, how people deal with it and how people end up overcoming it. While it can be a huge challenge for someone to battle and overcome anorexia, it is entirely possible with the right counseling and patient determination. There is some debate about who first described and identified anorexia.

Depending on whom one believes, it was discovered either by British physician William Withey Gull or French Neuropsychiatrist Ernest Charles Lasegue. They both seemed to have come to the same revelations and discoveries about the disorder in 1873, although they seem to have done so independent of one another. Gull seems to have made a "cryptic" mention to the disorder in 1868 but there is no hard proof one way or the other who came up with the discovery first (Vandereycken, 1989).

In any event, much more has come to be known about the disorder in the nearly century and a half that has lapsed since then. As noted in the introduction, women are much more prone to develop anorexia than men. At its heart, the disease is a mental disorder or dysfunction that occurs when a man or women with the disorder thinks they are fat or obese and thus refuses to eat even though they are not overweight and even though they are actually genuinely hungry.

While there are stages and degrees of the disorder, those at risk are those that are fifteen percent or more less than their ideal body weight. For example, someone whose normal body weight is 150 pounds would be in a danger zone if they slipped below 128 pounds or so. Besides gender, other risk factors are people that are high achievers, perfectionists, models, athletes or any realistic combination of that list.

Anorexia typically manifests during or near puberty but people of all ages from the teen years onwards can develop the disorder (WebMD, 2016). Warning signs for those that are definitely or potentially anorexic include a significant amount of weight loss, an intense fear of getting fat, turning away food for no obvious reason, denying that hunger exists, constant or excessive exercise, sensitivity to cold, absent or abnormal menstrual periods, hair loss, tooth decay or loss, fatigue, social isolation, vomiting (intentional or incidental) and the misuse of laxatives, diuretics or enemas.

Treatment of anorexia requires a full and comprehensive medical and mental care approach. This would include continuous medical care that encompasses regular therapy visits, nutritional counseling and, depending on the patient, medication options. The latter can be tricky as antidepressants can sometimes be effective when it comes to anorexia but there is no specific drug or drugs that has been approved specifically for the disorder.

In other words, antidepressants could and should be use if depression is a factor but that will not be the case for all anorexia patients as it would depend on what is causing the mental dysfunctions and feelings to occur and depression is not always one of them (WebMD, 2016). Overcoming anorexia is not an "overnight" thing. It takes a long and methodical process whereby old and dangerous habits are eliminated and new habits as it relates to self-perception and eating are learned and ingrained.

So long as treatment is sustained and follows the proper channels, it is usually successful. However, it does take time. Doctors who are involved in the treatment process should pay special attention to things such as bone loss, blood content and heart functionality. Psychologists involved with therapy and so forth are going to be instrumental in weaning their patients off of their self-destructive path and towards a more positive mood and outlook.

One thing that can pay huge dividends, much like it does with drug addicts and people with other afflictions, are support groups that are meetings of people that are suffering from the same or similar eating disorder problems and these groups should be led by a person that is an excellent group facilitator and that knows a great deal about the sufferings of the people there.

People with a history of eating disorders in the past are some of the best counselors because they have literally been where the support group members have been (WebMD, 2016). There are a lot of people that would offer tips and tricks to get over anorexia. Some of the commonly agreed upon facets of recover include listening to one's body, listening to one's feelings, trusting one's self, accepting one's self, loving one's self and enjoying life again. The proper steps to getting to an eating disorder-free state is to ask for.