The anorexia – the anorexia nervosa

The anorexia - the anorexia nervosa

The anorexia – the anorexia nervosa

The anorexia is a disease which generally touches the teenagers and mainly the young girls. But for a few years the doctors have had to deal with increasingly young patients.

The people anorexics live with the impression which them body too large, is badly made… They are compelled with conduits which make them lose weight. They do not feed practically more but do not see themselves losing. The anorexia is regarded as a addiction without substance, the anorexia corresponds to a disorder of the food behavior.

In addition to this card, lira also our file Anorexia: how to act?.

When to eat is a source of anguish

The anorexia is much more than one simple loss of appetite. The young girl, generally, has a false perception of her body, it judges herself too corpulent, badly made and wishes to lose beyond the reasonable one. At the beginning, the teenager can start with a mode to correct roundnesses, real or imaginary. But instead of stopping, once the few lost superfluous kilos, it continues its mode which becomes increasingly constraining, until the end where it refuses practically any food. The meals then become a true source of anguish and conflicts within the family, where all the attention is focused on the plate, always full… or which is not emptied. Sometimes, far from the glances, this one “cracks” and swallows of a blow a great quantity of food: it is an episode of bulimia. This access of voracity is lived like a failure, the person for déculpabiliser, can be then forced to vomit.

These deprivations involve a very important slimming being able to reach, in the most critical cases, half of the standard weight. The thinness is, moreover, one of the first reasons which lead the parents to consult a doctor, often against the liking of the patient who claims to be well. In addition to the slimming, the anorexia is often accompanied in the young girls by the stop by the rules, or amenorrhoeas.

Dictatorship of the thinness

Formerly, the anorexia touched only the Western companies. Today one witnesses an appearance of the disease in the emergent countries, especially at the people who adopted our lifestyle. The ideal of beauty represented by the “size mannequin”, the social pressure with the war against “the large ones” and the vestimentary fashion of the navel to the air are as many advanced arguments by the specialists to explain the progression, of the disease and the renovation of the patients. Despite everything, the causes of the anorexia remain still mysterious. It seems that disturbances of the family structure are related to the release of the disease. They are in general surprotégés children who had difficulties in affirm their independence compared to the mother. These young people are generally very demanding towards themselves and obtain school brilliances results. Very active, they often practice several sports, always with an aim of losing weight. But, even in the activities of group they remain rather in withdrawal.

To deprive themselves and be in danger

The anorexia is a grave disease which – in the extreme cases, can go until the death. The first disorders appear when the weight loss becomes too important. In full period of change, the teenager will suffer from deficiencies in vitamins, out of minerals (calcium), out of iron brought normally by the food. If the anorexia touches the younger child, it causes a deceleration of the growth. These deficiencies will weaken the organization, to make it more sensitive to the infections, the nails and the hair will be dry, breakable. With long, the denutrition can involve cardiac and hormonal disorders. In addition to his refusal to feed, the young person can have other dangerous drivings like being made vomit or misuse laxatives which can involve a potassium loss, always dangerous. The weight loss, when it becomes critical, requires the hospitalization, sometimes in reanimation.

An often incomplete cure

The treatment of the anorexia is very complex and utilizes various specialists. The goal is to give again with the teenager an image right of her body and to make him find a normal food behavior. Only one third of the anorexics cures completely, the others preserve disorders being able to go from simple food disorders to more important behavioral problems.

The assumption of responsibility of the anorexic must be made by a psychiatrist specialized in the disorders of the food conduits but it also utilizes of the nutritionnists and the family practitioner. The approaches of the psychiatric treatment differ from one team to another. For a long time one practiced the therapeutic insulation which consisted in prohibiting with the family any contact with the patient to a sign of improvement. Maintaining many medical teams integrate on the contrary the family in psychotherapy. Strong moments of this treatment being therapeutic meals where all the family is joined together. The criteria of cure are the resumption of a normal food behavior, the return of the rules and the needle of the balance starting again to climb