Anorexia Nervosa

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full stomach after eating just a few bites.
This disease occurs at any stage of development, but emerges first in adolescence. Recent estimates suggest that out of every 200 American girls between the ages of 12 and 18, one will develop anorexia to some degree. While most patients are female, about 6 percent are adolescent boys. Occasionally, the disorder is found in older women and in children as young as eight years old.
In the classical text on anorexia, Garfinkel and Garner (1892) maintain that a combination of cultural, familial and individual factors predispose an individual to this disorder. Some researchers believe that certain characteristics are often common to the families of persons who develop the disorder. The families producing anorexic people often show a preoccupation with weight eating, emphasize physical appearance; rely on external standard on self-worth and success, report a history of affective disorder or alcoholism, and experience difficult parent-child ...

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their emaciated state (70-80 lbs.) is either right, or too fat.
Psychological symptoms include personality characteristic such as perfectionism, obsessionality, introversion, insecurity, rigidity of thinking, dependency, overcompliance, self-denial, and self-abasement (Storber, 1986). Emotional characteristics such as anxiety, fear, and depression often precede or accompany . The patient's distorted view of herself and the world around her are the cause of these psychological disturbances.
Profound physical symptoms also occur in cases of extreme starvation. These include loss of head hair, growth of fine body hair, constipation, intolerance of cold temperatures and low pulse rate. ...

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