People With Anorexia Nervosa
There have been over 8 million people diagnosed with anorexia nervosa just since the seventies or eighties. Before that there had not been enough scientific study done to show just how serious anorexia really was. Anorexia was first described in 1684 but it wasn’t until 1870 that it was described and diagnosed as a disease. About one million of the eight million are male, with the rest being female. The majority of those diagnosed were between 10 and 20 years of age. The average age of diagnosed victims are 17. There have been some cases recorded of kids under 10 years old but it is rare. There are some over 20 in various ages who have also been diagnosed. The majority of those who have died from anorexia are over 70 years of age and most of them are male. Anorexia in the senior class of citizens is caused either by their forgetting to eat, loss of a loved one, or lack of appetite caused from an illness. In a lot of these cases the anorexia was not diagnosed in time for treatment. Another report states that one in every six people diagnosed with anorexia are male. It may come as a surprise to some that there are that many males diagnosed with anorexia and other eating disorders but when you think about it, they have stress and peer pressure too just like women do. It is just that most males will not talk about their problems as much as females do.
Anorexia can cause major damage to all of the vital organs in the body so it is important that the victim seek help as soon as possible to decrease the damage. In some cases the damage is already done before the anorexic victim seeks help because they are in denial that there is anything wrong with them. They see themselves as fat no matter how often they look in the mirror (and they do it often). They will also hide their thinness under baggy or layers of clothing. The damage to the brain is the cause of this because the anorexia controls the body instead of the other way around. It makes you think you are fat so you feel the need to continue to lose weight. It is not until the health begins to fail that the victim admits they need help. Sometimes the damage done can not all be reversed or repaired and the victim has to live with a health problem for the rest of their lives. Some people do have a full recovery from anorexia. There are also some who die or commit suicide from it also. There are treatment centers for eating disorders across the nation and they have qualified doctors who can help much better than they did in the past when they did not know enough about the disease. The healing process is a long, drawn out affair.
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