Friday, 6 January 2012

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Eating Disorders in Teens

  • Friday, 6 January 2012
  • Ramit Hooda
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  • As a teen, we all have experienced trying to fit in with the crowd and worry at how others may think of us. On top of that, the display of emaciated models by the media has reinforced an inappropriate obsession that you have to be thin to be socially acceptable. For this reason, some of the adolescent population has resorted to dangerous methods of getting extremely skinny.

    Anorexia Nervosa

    Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by an intense fear of becoming fat, deliberate starvation, and severe weight loss. People with this condition are totally absorbed with becoming thin as a result of a cultural obsession among teenage girls and young women. The disorder typically occurs in 1 out of 100 young women aged between 14 to 18 years of age. In the beginning, a person having anorexia nervosa may often deny their anxiety towards their body image. As the illness progresses, depression becomes apparent and the person may isolate herself from others.
    Anorexia is very difficult to treat. About one quarter of those who suffer from it do not recover or may die due to starvation or complications such as cardiac arrest.

    Bulimia Nervosa
    Bulimia is another eating disorder prevalent among teen marked by a morbid fear of getting fat resulting to binge eating followed by in appropriate behaviors to avoid weight gain such as purging (eliminating food by means of self-induced vomiting or use of laxatives, enemas, or emetics). It often begins as anorexia nervosa, although not always necessarily. Bulimia affects teenage girls and adult women between 16 to 30 years old.

    A person with bulimia eats in larger than normal amounts of food in secret, and engages in self-induced vomiting or purging with laxatives. The binging-vomiting cycles occur occasionally in weeks, once or several times in a day. As a result, they may have severe dehydration and several illnesses due to lack of nutrition. Organ damage may soon ensue which could lead to death. Like anorexia, bulimia is also hard to treat. A person with bulimia should be recommended to a therapist or admitted in a hospital as necessary.

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