Eating Disorder – Anorexia

Women are more prone to have Anorexia during their adolescence, which can last for months, years or be lifelong. People who develop this eating disorder have an abnormally low body weight, an extreme fear of gaining weight, and a distorted perception of their weight. Several factors contributed to people developing anorexia, such   a desire to adapt to society’s standards, family problems, and a lack of self-love.

Most of the people who suffer or suffer from anorexia just wanted to lose weight or lead a healthy life but it ends up being the opposite.  [A] as we will call her, is a teenager who suffered from Anorexia 3 years ago. She said, “I’m not sure how it all started, I only remember that I became interested in exercise and healthy eating to take care of myself. At first I went to the gym for 1 hour every other day and tried to eat as healthy as possible, over time the hours of the gym increased and I went every day for at least 2 hour and that made me feel very good. Little by little, the moment came when my menu was limited only to salads.”  Another factor that leads many to become obsessed with losing weight comes precisely from our own family members who constantly put ideas into our heads from childhood that being fat is wrong and that one should have a body as the models in the magazines. To which [A] said, “That is a fear that will always be there since, since I was a child my relatives told me that gaining weight was wrong, they also very often said that I should stop eating so much but one of the things that helped me understand that it is normal to gain weight is that we all face body changes for A or B reason.”

Certainly, realizing that you have anorexia and accepting it is difficult. 

A teenager who preferred not to reveal her identity said,“At first, I did want to recover but at the same time I was afraid of gaining weight, after my health worsened due to Anorexia I accepted that I needed help and put my health first rather than any stereotype.” Also she said, “When I started my treatment I felt that in a week I gained 2 kilos, and I tormented myself with that when in reality I did not gain almost anything and everything was in my mind.”

Those who suffer from anorexia nervosa must eat enough food during their treatment because their body has not eaten for a long time then their body is eating itself due to lack of food and if they do not follow the steps of their treatment correctly they could die.  [O], a teenager who is still undergoing treatment for anorexia, said, “I have to eat too much food a day, I must also be on constant rest until I gain even a little weight so that my body can maintain itself .”   And also she added this, “Regarding the fear of gaining weight, of course I am afraid and it has been worse in recent weeks since I have been seeing some changes in my body such as my stomach and cheeks swelling and I would like to stop the treatment and stop eating again because I hate how my body looks but at the same time I also want to get over this and have a normal  life and not obsess more with over losing weight .”

After all the process that people with anorexia have to go through, it is time to end treatment and lead a normal life without worrying about food. [S], a boy who finished his anorexia treatment earlier this year, said, “It was a very hard process but thanks to my effort I was able to get out of that and now I am satisfied with my body.” Even after finishing the treatment you can suffer from sudden relapses. He stated, “Yes, in fact I had a relapse about 3 months ago but when it happened I was very stressed by things that had nothing to do with food and I just stopped eating and this week I have not been very hungry which scares me but this time I don’t think it’s a relapse so I won’t force myself to eat because I’ll get more stressed.” In order to solve this problem one needs a change in one’s relationship with oneself, with others and with the world.

In short, anorexia is extreme weight loss due to strict diets and the reasons why the desire to lose weight develops are the standards of society, the desire to have a toned body, stress and sometimes depression. And the treatment for Anorexia is to eat abundantly according to how much weight you have lost and you need to continue that treatment until you have a normal body weight.