Anorexia

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by excessive food restriction and fear, irrational fear of gaining weight, and a distorted body self-perception. It typically involves excessive weight loss. Anorexia nervosa usually develops during adolescence and early adulthood. Due to the fear of gaining weight, people with this disorder restrict the amount of food they consume. This restriction of food intake causes metabolic and hormonal disorders.

Anorexia nervosa has many complicated implications and may be thought of as a lifelong illness that may never be truly cured, but only managed over time. Anorexia nervosa is characterized by low body weight, inappropriate eating habits and obsession with having a thin figure. Individuals suffering from it may also practice repeated weighing, measuring, and mirror gazing, alongside other obsessive actions, to make sure they are still thin, a common practice known as "body checking".

Those suffering from this disorder often view themselves as "too fat" even if they are already underweight. Persons with anorexia nervosa continue to feel hunger, but deny themselves all but very small quantities of food. The average caloric intake of a person with anorexia nervosa is 600–800 calories per day, but extreme cases of complete self-starvation are known. It is a serious mental illness with a high incidence of comorbidity and similarly high mortality rates to serious psychiatric disorders.

Hypokalaemia, a drop in the level of potassium in the blood, is a symptom of Anorexia nervosa. A significant drop in potassium can cause abnormal heart rhythms, constipation, fatigue, muscle damage and paralysis.
50-75% of individuals with an eating disorder experience depression. In addition, 1 in 4 individuals who are diagnosed with anorexia nervosa also exhibit obsessive compulsive disorder.


Symptoms for a typical patient include:

• Refusal to maintain a normal body mass index for their age
• Fearful of even the slightest weight gain and takes all precautionary measures to avoid weight gain and becoming overweight
• Lanugo: soft, fine hair growing on the face and body
• Preoccupation with food, recipes, or cooking; may cook elaborate dinners for others, but not eat the food herself
• Dieting despite being thin or dangerously underweight
• May engage in frequent, strenuous exercise
• Perception of self to be overweight despite being told by others she is too thin and, in most cases, underweight.
• Becomes intolerant to cold and frequently complains of being cold from loss of insulating body fat or poor circulation resulting from extremely low blood pressure; body temperature lowers (hypothermia) in effort to conserve energy
• Depression: may frequently be in a sad, lethargic state
• Abdominal distension 

Treatment:

Treatment for anorexia nervosa tries to address three main areas. 1) Restoring the person to a healthy weight; 2) Treating the psychological disorders related to the illness; 3) Reducing or eliminating behaviors or thoughts that originally led to the disordered eating.*

Here is a story of women who is suffering from anorexia.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorexia_nervosa