Anorexia: the fashion disease of young women


Slimming is a fruitful exercise unless you catch Anorexia. Find out what is Anorexia, what are the causes, diagnosis and symptoms. Keep reading!

Anorexia is spreading fast among teens, especially girls. Slimming is good as far as you can avoid being obsessed that you are overweight. A report on a recent trend about it, otherwise you may just be a skeleton and still among young women to slim down to look beautiful. This fashion disease is called anorexia and here you can learn more about the reasons, causes, diagnosis, and symptoms of anorexia. Keep reading!

What is anorexia: causes, diagnosis, symptoms


Sometimes, what starts as a desire to remain slim and trim and look beautiful can turn out to be a cause for great worry for some people and their family. Starting with a low-calorie diet and a regular exercise, a person’s abhorrence for food can throw the normal life of the family out of gear. Such people might be suffering from anorexia nervosa or simply anorexia — a disease in which one has a persistent lack of appetite not caused by repletion or overeating. Some recent studies in the field have shown increased instances of young girls between the age of 15 and 25 suffering from loss of appetite leading to further complications.

Actually, among the young girls with impressionable minds, the fashion to look like "that slim and fit and tempting model on the ramp or on the tele screen" is fast spreading and is, in fact, turning into some kind of an obsession. And the media is playing a big role in perpetuating the theory of "slim is beautiful."

The advertisements constantly and consistently stress the point that to be beautiful is to be slim and vice versa. For example, one of the soap ads shown on television shows a married woman is perceived as half her age by a man because she is dubli path aur hasin (slender and good-looking).

Even the world of art has been influenced by the contemporary thinking about a good-looking and presentable woman. Artists say that while earlier woman characters, including the goddesses, were drawn as somewhat plump and fleshy with heavy bust and heavy thighs, nowadays the trend is more towards "high cheek-limbs with bones, slender athletic figure."

The young women have got an impression that maintaining a slim body is enough -they are not concerned about having a healthy body. And this thinking is giving rise to a generation which is constitutionally weak and which will produce a still weaker next generation. Most of the young girls are not even taking essential nutrients these days which later on lead to many gynecological problems, osteoporosis, besides anorexia nervosa.

What happens during anorexia?


The lack of appetite is the basic symptom of anorexia . It happens because the body gets adapted to a lesser amount of food and calories, resulting in the loss of the feeling of hunger. When a young girt was told about the symptom of anorexia, she simply shrugged off her shoulders to say, "So what?"

That kind of reaction is quite natural as long as one does not know what the symptom of lack of the feeling of hunger may lead to. Experts say that when a person suffering from anorexia is made to eat immediately after taking the food in, he vomits. One of the most celebrated patients of anorexia was the late Lady Diana, who most of the time vomited whatever she ate.

Further, if a person (it occurs more among young women than among men) does not wake up to the alarm bells, the chances of her developing a psychological problem, called anorexia nervosa, become quite high.

Here is what Fishbein’s Illustrated Medical and Health Encyclopedia has to say about anorexia nervosa: "It is a condition characterized by an extreme weight loss brought about by an abnormal aversion to eating. It occurs mostly in young neurotic women who have an obsessional preoccupation in avoiding overweight and in whom the obsession obscures their judgment. Outwardly, they deny hunger, are constantly overactive, and enjoy feeding others. In severe cases, weight loss is so great as to threaten life, and hospitalization is necessary."

Perhaps, now one cannot say, "So what?" Psychiatrists and psychologists have noticed some sharp increase in the cases of anorexia nervosa among the young girls. Now girls want to be thin to the extent of showing their collar-bones and veins.





Reasons why anorexia has increased


The change in social values and thoughts too has affected the scenario. The sociologists find that the pitfalls of consumerism are such that looking good, talking well and donning fashionable dresses bring more admiration and prestige than academic excellence, or for that matter, exemplary performance in the sports field. Hence, the urge to slim down and don a look that is "in."

But the psychiatrists warn that anorexia may have biological reasons too and that aspect should also be probed. The loss of appetite may also result from the decreasing level of female hormone and that aspect should also be taken care of before going into the guiding psychology of the patient.

The role of parents, especially mothers, becomes quite crucial. If they find that their daughters are not able to maintain even 75% of their normal standard of height-weight rate and go on complaining of their being overweight, the parents should start taking remedial steps. Psychologists say that at first the person concerned should be patiently made to see reason and if that fails, the parents should take her to a psychiatrist. But sometimes the mothers themselves insist on their daughters’ maintaining a slim body.

So who has gained and who has lost due to such projections of womanly appearance? The greatest beneficiary has been health clinics which have mushroomed throughout the country, especially in "looks- conscious" metros. With catchy advertisements, ‘convenient timings’ and ‘special summer classes’, they have made their existence almost compulsory for the modern generation girls.

But in this mad rush losing weight is an industry now, and it is advisable to be discerning. The kind of attractive advertisements which these health clinics come out with speak for themselves. A renowned health clinic says about its slimming program thus: "Reduce kilos of weight, become slimmer without fear of gaining it back. You will feel the difference instantly."

It is this concept of feeling the difference "instantly" which alarms the doctors. Most of the doctors feel that the so-called health clinics which are not "responsible," put you on high-protein diet so that the "feeling of fullness" is always there but actually one is getting quite low calories.

It is only the "unprofessional and irresponsible people" who have made health care completely a business- oriented vocation. So, it would perhaps be better if anorexia, as a "fashion disease," is tackled at the individual level where excessive thinking about one's appearance is resisted by other fruitful activities.


More articles: Risk Factors of Fashion

Comments

Author: Kumaraditya Sarkar10 May 2012 Member Level: Bronze   Points : 3

This is a great article which should really open the eyes of over-fashionable people, especially teenage girls. Let me narrate a personal experience.

Around late July last year, my grandfather was admitted to the Belle Vue Nursing Home for a Bypass. While waiting in the lounge one day, I noticed two ladies talking to the doctor over a teen girl. They were loud enough for me to overhear, and the girl was in a serious state. By now I do not remember what had exactly happened to her, but in plain language, she kept starving to be slim and somehow ended up with a cerebral attack or something like that (well, doctors can tell better what exactly might have been the case, but it was serious, and unfortunate).

It is time everyone should realize that health is wealth, and it is better to have a few extra pounds than to starve and catch a disease.



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