Anorexia

Anorexia is an eating disorder in which people starve themselves. The disorder mainly affects girls or women, although it is possible for men to suffer from it as well (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/anorexianervosa.htm). Anorexia usually begins in the teenage years with the onset of puberty and is characterized by extreme weight loss that is usually below the person's normal body weight (http://mamashealth.com/anorexia.asp). These people also have an intense drive for thinness, a tremendous fear of gaining weight, as well as a distorted body image (http://eatingdisorders.laureate.com/About_Eating_Disorders/Anorexia_Nervosa.asp). Individuals suffering from anorexia are extremely skinny, but are convinced they are overweight and obtain weight loss through over exercising, taking laxatives, and not eating (http://www.mamashealth.com). People with this disorder ignore their hunger and therefore are able to control their desire to eat (http://www.nami.org/Content/ContentGroups/Helpline1/Anorexia_Nervosa.htm). They develop unusual eating habits such as refusing to eat in the presence of others and also prepare large meals for people while refusing to eat any of it (http://www.mamashealth.com).

Dopamine and serotonin pathways.

Two images of an anorexic female patient published...

A summary of the strategy Zucker et al. (2007) use...

Anorexia is a very interesting topic to research. I wanted to understand why people starved themselves and what exactly drove them to cause harm to their bodies. The media portrays "fit" women as extremely skinny with not one inch of fat on their body. This results in more and more outbreaks of anorexia among teenage girls as they desire to achieve the ideal body figure. For this reason and many more, women especially develop anorexia.

It is said that both inherent biological factors as well as the patient's social environmental factors play a role in the evolution of anorexia (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk). Eating disorders also tend to run in families, mainly affecting the female relatives (http://www.nami.org), which compels the belief that genetic factors may influence the onset of anorexia. Families with a history of depression or alcoholism are often the source for the development of the...