Anorexia Essay Research Paper 2

Anorexia Essay, Research Paper

Anorexia is a condition that affects every part of you, your body, and your mind. In the

world that we live in, where on every magazine cover, every tv show, and even in your home

room, you see beautiful, skinny girls that seem to have everything they want. They seem to be

popular, always happy, and have the perfect body. Many girls that are just beginning to go

through adolescence feel that to be these perfect girls, they have to be skinny. They turn to

anorexia.

Anorexia is a serious eating disorder, in which girls have an intense fear of becoming

fat. The diagnostic criteria, although not all patients with anorexia experience these

symptoms, are characteristics of anorexics. Anorexics have a refusal to maintain body weight

at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height. Their weight loss leading to

maintenance of body weight is below 20% of the expected body weight of healthy individuals

at the same age and height. Some anorexics have a distorted body image of themselves,

leading them to believe they are fat, even if they are seriously underweight.

The physical signs that can be seen or felt are dramatic weight loss in a relatively short

period of time, skeletal look, sunken eyes, dry, yellow, or grey skin, thinning hair, hair growth

on arms, legs and other body parts in effort to keep heat in, loss of body muscle and fat,

dizziness and headaches, complaints of often feeling cold, fainting spells, inability to sleep,

exhaustion, and their period stopping or never starting

The psychological characteristics of anorexics may include an obsession with weight

and complaining of weight problems, obsession with continuous exercise, visible food

restriction and self-starvation, isolation and fear of eating around and with others, self-

defeating statements after food consumption, low self-esteem, needing acceptance from

others, perfectionistic personality, mood swings, and depression.

Unseen dangers of an anorexic are a shrunken heart with an irregular beat, low body

temperature, brittle bones, low blood pressure, slower pulse, and stunted growth. Self-

starvation, if not treated, eventually leads to heart and kidney disorders, organ failure, and

death.

There are many reasons why a young girl becomes anorexic, but in many cases, the

girls are high achievers, and try to please those around them. They may be the girls you know

that are straight-A students and have busy schedules. This perfectionistic personality leads

them to believe that to make their family, friends, teachers, and coaches happy, they need to

be perfect, and thin. Although they seem as though they have everything going for them, they

have low self-esteem and may not want to grow up. Many cases develop at the ages 11 or 18,

the beginning and ending of adolescence, when girls at both stages are entering a new phase

in life. In past cases, the typical anorexic was a ?white teenage girl from a middle-class good

home.? Now, anyone can suffer from anorexia, including teenage boys.

Anything can trigger the girl into thinking she must be thin. Sometimes constant

teasing from classmates and peers can make a girl believe that if she were thin, nobody would

be making fun of her. A sexually, physically, or mentally abusive parent may trigger a girl into

thinking she has to be perfect.

The girl starts off on a diet, usually not very serious. She will start restricting what

foods she eats and how much. Instead of a normal 2200 calories a day diet, she may drop to