Anorexia – the basics

Anorexia nervosa is when make yourself lose very serious amounts of weight. It’s more than just being slim and more than just dieting – not every slim person is anorexic and nor is every dieter.

It usually starts when you are 14 or 15, and often with a bit of dieting. You think you are a bit fat or overweight and want to look like all the supermodels. You start by controlling your food, but then your diet starts to control you and you can’t stop. You think you are fat even when you are very, very thin, and look as if you are starved.

Nobody really knows why it happens, but there are lots of theories:

• It may be because you are depressed
• It may be because you are stressed
• It may be because you don’t want to grow up
• It may be because you are scared of getting fat
• It may be a way of feeling in control
• It may be because you want other people to notice you

It’s quite common - 1 in 100 teenage girls suffer from it (but only 1 in 2000 boys). Not eating damages your body, but part of the problem is in the mind - how you see yourself and your body.

What happens first

You lose a lot of weight by deliberately not eating
You want to exercise all the time
You get obsessed with the idea that you are fat and think it’s dreadful to be fat
If you are a girl, you stop getting periods

What happens next

Your arms and legs get as thin as sticks
You have trouble sleeping
You find it difficult to concentrate
You feel the cold
Your skin gets dry and hairy over your neck, arms and legs
Your hands and feet get blue and liable to chilblains
Your heart rate gets slower and slower
You become increasingly sad and depressed
Your body begins to die from starvation
You keep on using laxatives (tablets that make you poo a lot, stop you from absorbing your food and can make you very ill)

If this is you - you need to think, ‘yes I have got a problem’, and that’s the hardest thing to do.

Are people telling you you’re anorexic?
I’m worried that my friend is anorexic