Explain about the Anorexia Nervosa?

Anorexia nervosa, as you have read above, is a psychological eating disorder characterized by somatic delusions that one is too fat despite being emaciated, and refusal to maintain a minimally normal weight for height and age. The condition includes weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight 15 percent below normal; an intense fear of weight gain or becoming fat, despite the individual's underweight status; a disturbance in the self-awareness of one's own body weight or shape; and in females, the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles that would otherwise be expected to occur. Individuals with anorexia nervosa are unwilling or refuse to eat enough food to maintain a body weight that is normal or expectable for their age and height (most clinician's use 85% of normal weight as a guide).

Such individuals, typically display a pronounced fear of weight gain and dread of becoming fat although they are dramatically underweight. Concerns and perceptions about their weight have an extremely powerful influence and impact on their self- evaluation. The seriousness of the weight loss and its physical effects is minimized or denied. From the above description, it is evident then that anorexia nervosa is a condition characterized by voluntary self-starvation and emaciation. The patients have body image distortion, causing them to feel fat despite their often cachectic (weight loss, wasting of muscle, loss of appetite, and general debility) state. So then, how can we find out for sure whether a person is simply underweight or is he/she suffering from an eating disorder? For this purpose, the American Psychiatric Association has laid down certain diagnostic criteria in the 1994 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.