Initial signs of anorexia: how to identify them?

March 31, 2014  20:35

A couple of years ago the problem of anorexia was still completely irrelevant in Armenia, but many painfully thin boys and girls can be seen in the streets now.

From one side, thin people  fit the requirements of modern fashion, and that’s why they do not give a concern to their thinness, but from the other side, as recent investigations show, the mortality rate caused by excessive thinness exceeds that of obesity.  Hence the problem of anorexia is not as harmless, as it may seem. 

How can the initial signs of anorexia be identified?

There are several symptoms, which can help people identify the start of anorexia (as well as several other psychological disorders or those of feeding).

Nutritionist  Vardanush Petrosyan told about those symptoms in an interview with journalists.  As she stated, critical attitude to one’s self, when a person starts to treat his figure extremely critically, is the first symptom of him/her having problems. “The person thinks he is bad, fat, that he/she has to lose weight necessarily...”, the nutritionist says. And such thoughts may come up independently of the person’s appearance or weight: at anorexia it’s usually those people (who believe they are fat), whose weight is objectively lower than normal. 

Menstruation disorder

Many women suffering from anorexia have menstruation disorders.  “Fat tissues are hormonally active and synthesize sex hormones,  that’s why women with shortage of fat tissue have reproduction disorder”,  Vardanush Petrosyan  explains.

Feeling guilty

According to the nutritionist, the first alarming symptom, indicating to the availability of feeding disorder, is the feeling of guilt for eaten food. “That occurs when a person thinks: “I shouldn’t have eaten something, tomorrow I’ll do another way…”. Regardless of whatever is planned for tomorrow, food should not cause any feeling of guilt”, Vardanush Petrosyan is convinced. “If you encounter that you or somebody else has those symptoms, do not try to ignore them, as they may be an evidence of anorexia or other similar disorders”.

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