What are the warning signs of Anorexia Nervosa?

Anorexia Nervosa begins as a psychological issue, in which a person has a distorted body image and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. The person, who suffers from the Anorexia eating disorder, voluntarily engages in starvation, using a variety of methods to control their body weight.

The Anorexia eating disorder tends to affect adolescent or pre adolescent teenage girls, who tend to have a distorted body image, often accompanied by preoccupation or excessive thoughts about food and weight.

It is not uncommon for parents to be unaware that their child is suffering from the eating disorder anorexia in the beginning, especially with teenage girls. It is not uncommon for them to skip meals or be preoccupied with dieting, as is common practice among teenage girls in general. So where does normal “dieting” stop and the development of anorexia nervosa began?

No one can really agree as to when the exact moment starts, but there are several warning signs that parents can look for. Issues of depression and \or obsession with food, more specifically, low fat or low calorie foods and excessive perfectionism, seem to be some sort of bases for the development of the Anorexia eating disorder.

One of the most obvious is excessive weight loss and the denial that they are underweight. The parent most often will feel like they’re talking to a brick wall if they bring up excessive weight loss. A person, who suffers from the eating disorder of Anorexia, cannot be convinced that they are thin.

Playing with their food and often cutting it up into very small pieces, is also a warning sign. You may notice that they are just spreading it around on their plate to make it look like they’ve been eating; all too often they will eat only one or two bytes at most.

Skipping meals is often one of the first warning signs that will be noticed, outside as excessive weight loss. A person suffering from the Anorexia eating disorder often will find excuses not to eat, such as saying they have an appointment or eating at someone else’s house or the famous “I already had something earlier.”

Obsession with models or actresses, who are extremely thin, is also a warning sign that parents can look for. Often parents will find pictures cut out of magazines or off of the Internet in their child’s room. Often a person suffering from and eating disorder is obsessed with comparing their bodies, to those that they consider ideal.

Although rare, academic issues can arise such as falling grades, but due to their perfectionism, this is not very common. Excessive exercising is however, common for people that suffer from eating disorders. As well as, for females who suffer from the anorexia eating disorder, lack of menstruation is a telltale sign but this normally only happens in the later stages.