What is Anorexia Nervosa?

Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by:

  • Extremely restricted food intake leading to significant weight loss, or lack of weight gain as would be expected for children and teenagers.
  • Intense fear of gaining weight or of becoming fat, or persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain.
  • Distorted body image, self-esteem that is heavily influenced by perceptions of body weight and shape, or difficulty understanding the seriousness of low body weight.

Eating disorders can have serious emotional, interpersonal, and medical consequences that greatly affect quality of life and can become chronic disorders. They can lead to hospitalization and carry the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. Anorexia nervosa involves a relentless pursuit of thinness and an unwillingness to maintain a normal body weight. People who suffer from anorexia nervosa are preoccupied with body weight, body shape, dieting, food, fat, or calories. Despite their emaciation, people who suffer from anorexia nervosa have an extreme fear of gaining weight and becoming fat. Children and adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa may weigh themselves repeatedly, check food ingredients and nutrition labels, severely restrict the amount of food they eat, often exercise excessively, and/or force themselves to vomit or use laxatives to lose weight. A subgroup of people with anorexia nervosa has periods when they lose control over eating and consume unusually large amounts of food (binge eating).

Common Physical Complications Associated with Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder and is associated with numerous medical complications. However, many of these complications are reversible with proper nutrition and discontinued use of laxatives, diuretics, and enemas, and cessation of self-induced vomiting.

Medical complications include:

  • Electrolyte imbalances (which can lead to heart attack and kidney failure)
  • Cardiac irregularities
  • Kidney dysfunction
  • Cerebral atrophy
  • Swollen salivary glands
  • Gastrointestinal disturbances
  • Dental deterioration
  • Finger clubbing or swelling
  • Edema and dehydration
  • Loss of menstrual periods and infertility
  • Bone abnormalities (bone mineral loss and osteoporosis)
  • Dry skin and hair loss
  • Lanugo (fine hair growth on face and body)