What is anorexia nervosia, what does it mean to be anorexic and how can a psychiatrist help?
Nowadays, many of us feel like we need to lose weight, with media focusing on the latest celebrity’s weight loss or advertisements for new diets or miracle weight-loss pills. For most people, it may not be a bad thing to lose a few of those pounds we gained over the holidays. However, for individuals with perfectly normal weight, this overwhelming preoccupation with losing weight or staying skinny can be due to a psychiatric disorder called anorexia nervosa.
First and foremost, individuals with anorexia nervosa weigh much less they should compared to their peers of similar age, sex and height. If you want to put it into numbers, a low body weight is technically defined as a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5.
Despite this low body weight, they also have a fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, which leads to repeated behaviors that prevent gaining any weight. There are two main subtypes of behaviors:
Lastly individuals with anorexia nervosa will also be in denial about their low body weight, continue to think they are overweight and deny the medical consequences if they stay at their current body weight or lose more weight.
If an individual has had anorexia nervosa for some time, their low weight can cause a variety of symptoms throughout the body. In fact, these complications actually are the cause of death in more than half of patients with anorexia nervosa. Serious complications include:
Anorexic people unfortunately tend to have other common conditions that overlap with their anorexia. These include other psychiatric conditions like anxiety, depression or alcohol/drug abuse. There can also be problems with memory, attention and sleeping.
The most critical thing to improve is the weight loss, since this can result in all the complications listed above. Since eating is difficult for most anorexic individuals, a dietitian will be needed to work with a physician to create the right plan for the patient to gain weight slowly and safely. Safety is key here, due to the problems that can come from gaining weight too quickly.
Additionally, a patient with anorexia nervosa will also receive psychotherapy with a counselor or psychiatrist to improve the way the patient thinks about what causes them to lose weight in an unhealthy way.
Medications are typically not prescribed by a psychiatrist to treat anorexia nervosa unless there are certain resulting conditions that may need them.
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