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Self-care

When you have anorexia, it can be difficult to take care of yourself properly. In addition to professional treatment, follow these steps:

· Stick to your treatment plan. Don't skip therapy sessions and try not to stray from meal plans, even if they make you uncomfortable.

· Talk to your doctor about appropriate vitamin and mineral supplements. If you're not eating well, chances are your body isn't getting all of the nutrients it needs.

· Don't isolate yourself from caring family members and friends who want to see you get healthy. Understand that they have your best interests at heart.

· Resist urges to weigh yourself or check yourself in the mirror frequently. These may do nothing but fuel your drive to maintain unhealthy habits.

So how do you cope with a disease that can be deadly when you may be getting messages that being thin is a sign of success?

· Remind yourself what a healthy weight is for your body, especially at times when you see images that may trigger your desire to restrict calories.

· Don't visit pro-anorexia Web sites. These sites can encourage you to maintain dangerous habits and trigger relapses. Anorexia isn't a lifestyle choice. It's a disease, and it's probably controlling your life.

· Acknowledge that you may not be the best judge of whether you're eating enough or are at a healthy weight.

· Identify situations that are likely to trigger thoughts or behavior that may contribute to your anorexia so that you can develop a plan of action to deal with them.

· Look for positive role models, even if they're not easy to find. Remind yourself that the ultra thin models or actors showcased in women's magazines or gossip magazines often don't represent healthy bodies.

· Don't call anorexia your friend. That kind of self-deception can kill you.

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Treatment

Treatment of anorexia is generally done using a team approach that includes medical providers, mental health providers and dietitians, all with experience in eating disorders.
What's commonly involved in treating people with anorexia

• Medical care Because of the host of complications anorexia causes, you may need frequent monitoring of vital signs, hydration level and electrolytes, as well as related physical conditions. A family doctor or primary care doctor may be the one who coordinates care with the other health care professionals involved. Sometimes, though, it's the mental health provider who coordinates care.
• Hospitalization In cases of medical complications, psychiatric emergencies, severe malnutrition or continued refusal to eat, hospitalization may be needed. Hospitalization may be on a medical or psychiatric ward. Some clinics specialize in treating people with eating disorders. Some may offer day programs or residential programs, rather than full hospitalization. Specialized eating disorder programs may offer more intensive treatment over longer periods of time. Also, even after hospitalization ends, ongoing therapy and nutrition education are highly important to continued recovery.
• Medications There are no medications specifically to treat anorexia since they've shown limited benefit in treating this eating disorder. However, antidepressants or other psychiatric medications can help treat other mental disorders you may also have, such as depression or anxiety.
• Nutritional therapy A dietitian offers guidance on a healthy diet. A dietitian can provide specific meal plans and calorie requirements to help meet weight goals. In severe cases, people with anorexia may require feeding through a tube that's placed in their nose and goes to the stomach (nasogastric tube).
• Psychotherapy Individual, family and group therapy may all be beneficial. Individual therapy can help you deal with the behavior and thoughts that contribute to anorexia. In psychotherapy, you can gain a healthier self-esteem and learn positive ways to cope with distress and other strong feelings. A type of talk therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is most commonly used but lacks strong evidence that it's superior to other forms of therapy.

The mental health provider can help assess the need for psychiatric hospitalization or day treatment programs.

Family therapy can help resolve family conflicts or muster support from concerned family members. Family therapy can be especially important for children with anorexia who still live at home. Group therapy gives you a way to connect to others facing eating disorders. And informal support groups can also be helpful. However, be careful with group therapy. For some people with anorexia, group therapy or support groups can result in competitions to be the thinnest person there.

Because anorexia nervosa has biological, psychological, familial, and socio-cultural components, effective treatment should involve collaboration among health professionals, including physicians, therapists, and dieticians.
The first course of action should be to aggressively seek help from a physician to diagnose and immediately treat any physical problems. Hospitalization is sometimes necessary to prevent starvation.

Individuals with anorexia nervosa are often very resistant to getting help. Their resistance is often reinforced by friends who envy thinness or by dance or athletic coaches who encourage extremely low body fat. It's extremely important to have the heightened support of family members to better ensure their loved one's recovery, family therapy is often encouraged and of significant help.

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Causes of Anorexia

There is no single cause. Anorexia nervosa is caused by a complex interplay of factors that can include emotional and personality disorders, family stress, and possible genetic or biologic susceptibilities, all of which can be reinforced by a culture that equates attractiveness with being thin.

It's not known specifically what causes some people to develop anorexia. As with many diseases, it's likely a combination of biological, psychological and sociocultural factors.

· Biological. Some people may be genetically vulnerable to developing anorexia. Young women with a biological sister or mother with an eating disorder are at higher risk, for example, suggesting a possible genetic link. Studies of twins also support that idea. However, it's not clear specifically how genetics may play a role. It may be that some people have a genetic tendency toward perfectionism, sensitivity and perseverance, all traits associated with anorexia. There's also some evidence that serotonin — one of the brain chemicals involved in depression — may play a role in anorexia.

· Psychological. People with anorexia may have psychological and emotional characteristics that contribute to anorexia. They may have low self-worth, for instance. They may have obsessive-compulsive personality traits that make it easier to stick to strict diets and forgo food despite being hungry. They may have an extreme drive for perfectionism, which means they may never think they're thin enough.

· Sociocultural. Modern Western culture often cultivates and reinforces a desire for thinness. The media are splashed with images of waif-like models and actors. Success and worth are often equated with being thin. Peer pressure may fuel the desire to be thin, particularly among young girls. However, anorexia and other eating disorders existed centuries ago, suggesting that sociocultural values aren't solely responsible

Although the precise cause of anorexia is unknown, certain factors can increase the risk of developing anorexia, including:

· Dieting. People who lose weight by dieting are often reinforced by positive comments from others and by their changing appearance. They may end up dieting excessively.

· Unintentional weight loss. People who don't intentionally diet but lose weight after an illness or accident may be complimented on their new-found thinness. Reinforced, they may wind up dieting to an extreme.

· Weight gain. Someone who gains weight may be dismayed with their new shape and may get criticized or ridiculed. In response, they may wind up dieting excessively.

· Puberty. Some adolescents have trouble coping with the changes their bodies go through during puberty. They also may face increased peer pressure and may be more sensitive to criticism or even casual comments about weight or body shape. All of these can set the stage for anorexia.

· Transitions. Whether it's a new school, home or job, a relationship breakup, or the death or illness of a loved one, change can bring emotional distress. One way to cope, especially in situations that may be out of someone's control, is to latch on to something that they can control, such as their eating.

· Sports, work and artistic activities. Athletes, actors and television personalities, dancers, and models are at higher risk of anorexia. For some, such as ballerinas, ultra-thinness may even be a professional requirement. Sports associated with anorexia include running, wrestling, figure skating and gymnastics. Professional men and women may believe they'll improve their upward mobility by losing weight, and then take it to an extreme. Coaches and parents may inadvertently raise the risk by suggesting that young athletes lose weight.

· Media and society. The media, such as television and fashion magazines, frequently feature a parade of skinny models and actors. But whether the media merely reflect social values or actually drive them isn't clear-cut. In any case, these images may seem to equate thinness with success and popularity.

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Signs and symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa

Physical signs and symptoms of anorexia include:
· Extreme weight loss
· Thin appearance
· Abnormal blood counts
· Fatigue
· Dizziness or fainting
· Brittle nails
· Hair that thins, breaks or falls out
· Soft, downy hair covering the body
· Absence of menstruation
· Constipation
· Dry skin
· Intolerance of cold
· Irregular heart rhythms
· Low blood pressure
· Dehydration
· Osteoporosis

Emotional and behavioral characteristics associated with anorexia include:
· Refusal to eat
· Denial of hunger
· Excessive exercise
· Flat mood, or lack of emotion
· Difficulty concentrating
· Preoccupation with food

It may be hard to notice signs and symptoms of anorexia. People with anorexia often go to great lengths to disguise their thinness, eating habits or physical problems.
If you're concerned that a loved one may have anorexia, watch for these possible red flags:
· Skipping meals
· Making excuses for not eating
· Eating only a few certain "safe" foods, usually those low in fat and calories
· Adopting rigid meal or eating rituals, such as cutting food into tiny pieces or spitting food out after chewing
· Weighing food
· Cooking elaborate meals for others but refusing to eat
· Repeated weighing of themselves
· Frequent checking in the mirror for perceived flaws
· Wearing baggy or layered clothing
· Complaining about being fat

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Anorexia Are Extremely Serious of the Health Risks.

Anorexia has one of the higher death rates among all mental illnesses, around 5 percent but perhaps even higher than that. Cardiac disease is the most common medical cause of death in people with severe anorexia; the heart can develop dangerously slow rhythms, known as bradycardia, or, in many cases, the heart muscles literally starve, losing size. Some individuals suffer nerve damage and experience seizures, disordered thinking, and/or chronic nerve problems in their hands and feet.

Individuals with anorexia nervosa can become victim to major depression which then sets in play a dangerous cycle of emotional and physical disturbances, suicide is the cause of as many as half the deaths in anorexia nervosa.

If a person with anorexia becomes severely malnourished, every organ in the body can sustain damage, including the brain, heart and kidneys. This damage may not be fully reversible, even when the anorexia is under control.

Complications of anorexia include:
· Death
· Anemia
· Heart problems, such as mitral valve prolapse, abnormal heart rhythms and heart failure
· Bone loss, increasing risk of fractures later in life
· Lung problems resembling emphysema
· In females, absence of a period
· In males, decreased testosterone
· Gastrointestinal problems, such as constipation, bloating or nausea
· Electrolyte abnormalities, such as low blood potassium, sodium and chloride
· Kidney problems

People with anorexia also commonly have other mental disorders as well. They may include:
· Depression
· Anxiety disorders
· Personality disorders
· Obsessive-compulsive disorders
· Drug abuse

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What’s Anorexia Nervosa.?
People with anorexia are obsessed with food and their weight and body shape. They attempt to maintain a weight that's far below normal for their age and height. In extreme cases, they may be skeletally thin but still think they're fat. To prevent weight gain or to continue losing weight, people with anorexia may starve themselves or exercise excessively. The disorder involves extreme weight loss—at least 15% below the individual's "ideal" weight—and a refusal to maintain body weight that is even minimally normal for their age and height and body frame.

The self-esteem of individuals with this disorder is hyper-dependent on their body shape and weight While more than 90% of the cases affect young women, the numbers of recognized cases of males with anorexia nervosa is increasing.

In their concerted efforts to continually reduce their weight, anorexics reduce their food and calorie intake through such rigid strategies as excluding what they perceive to be high fat or high calorie foods; limiting their food intake to just a few specific low calorie foods; bingeing and purging; purging after even the smallest meals; refusing to eat in public, and/or going to great lengths to avoid eating with even close friends or family. Anorexics become obsessed with food—hoarding it, going to extra efforts to fix meals for others, carrying around stashes of candy—yet they will not allow themselves to eat any of it.

People who have anorexia are white and come from wealthy families. But it can happen to anyone.

People who have anorexia often strongly deny that they have a problem.
Anorexia can take a long time to overcome, and it is common to fall back into unhealthy habits. If you are having problems, don't try to handle them on your own. Get help now.