People with anorexia will take extreme measures to continue losing weight or avoid weight gain, such as compulsive exercise, purging food after eating by intentionally vomiting, misusing laxatives, or extreme dieting. Regardless of how much weight is actually lost, you maintain an intense fear of weight gain. 

Anorexia affects approximately 1-2% of the global population and is most common among female adolescents and young adults, though it also affects men and is increasingly common among children. 

Anorexia is a serious condition that can have severe complications if left untreated, including malnutrition and death. Anorexia also has significantly higher mortality rates and suicide rates than other mental disorders. With treatment, however, you can take back control of your body image and eating habits and manage the risks of living with anorexia.

What’s the Difference Between Anorexia and Bulimia?

The principal difference between anorexia and bulimia is that while a person with anorexia takes extreme measures to lose weight or avoid gaining weight, a person with bulimia employs strategies to consistently purge food from their body after an episode of binge eating by taking laxatives or making themselves throw up. People with anorexia and people with bulimia both tend to fixate on their body weight and shape and have trouble accurately assessing their body image. 

Anorexia Signs and Symptoms 

Early signs of anorexia are often difficult to recognize. You do not have to be underweight in order to have anorexia. While the physical signs of anorexia are related to starvation, there are typically also behavioral and emotional signs and symptoms of anorexia as well.

While a low weight does not always indicate anorexia, the most common physical sign of anorexia is having a low body weight for your height, sex, and stature. Other physical signs of anorexia include significant weight loss in a short period of time (weeks or months) and extremely thin appearance (emaciation).

The behavioral signs of anorexia center around taking extreme measures to lose weight such as extreme dieting or fasting, compulsive exercise, and self-induced vomiting after eating.

The emotional signs of anorexia tend to focus on body image and self-worth, including a preoccupation with food and weight, frequently skipping meals or refusing to eat in public, and repeated weighing the body or looking in the mirror for perceived flaws. 

Other serious long-term health risks associated with anorexia include:

• Irregular heartbeats
• Electrolyte imbalance
• Low blood sugar and seizures
• Anemia
• Loss of bone mass
• Delayed puberty and physical growth
• Infertility
• Insomnia
• Osteoporosis
• Kidney and liver damage
• Low potassium
• Cardiac arrest
• Depression and severe anxiety
• Alcohol use disorder and substance misuse

Anorexia Treatment 

The right approach for anorexia treatment typically depends on the severity of your condition as well as your age, overall health, medical history, and other factors. In more severe cases, urgent medical care is needed to address physical health complications. 

Nutrition counseling from a registered dietitian that specializes in eating disorders is a critical part of recovering and managing your anorexia. The specialized anorexia treatment team at Nourish will work with you to understand biological, psychological and social contributors to your eating disorder. First and foremost, intervention at a behavioral level is imperative to stop restricting. Secondly, your treatment team will seek to understand the psychological issues that contribute to your eating disorder and help identify and treat root causes.

At Nourish, we have a team of anorexia dietitians that specialize in working with patients at all stages of recovery and patients that have atypical anorexia. We offer nutrition counseling over telehealth and accept insurance in order to make accessing care as easy and affordable as possible. Click here to find your dietitian today and begin your recovery journey.