Why would a person want to starve themselves almost to the point of death? A lot of people may fast for spiritual reasons, but there are those who go way further than the limits of safety just for looks alone. Anorexics are not trying to make a statement or reach nirvana. So why would someone choose self-imposed under nourishment as opposed to living a good healthy life?
If there are physiological reasons for anorexia nervosa, not any have yet been found. No series of laboratory tests have revealed defective DNA, the “inheritance factor” is out, and anorexics show no abnormalities of the brain through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
By ruling out bodily causes leaves us to turn to mental causes of anorexia. Numerous studies point to these possible psychological causes of anorexia: Patients display obsessive-compulsive characteristics in a lot of life areas e.g. maintaining inflexible schedules, making lists, and “checking” behaviour familiar to those with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Anorexics hardly ever self-refer themselves for treatment. They come to the attention of mental health therapists by their general practitioner or deeply worried family members who dread for their lives.
It is well-known that an individual suffering from anorexia will not take his or her self in for therapy. More often than not, either a concerned physician or family member will in the end force the anorexic to attend therapy as a matter of life or death.
Anorexic patients do not see their Behavior as challenging; they see themselves through warped eyes that tell them that they could do with losing even more weight through starvation and unnecessary exercise. Patients often have co-morbid conditions such as major depression, anxiety disorders, and obsessive-compulsive characteristics.
Anorexics will never eat in public, have feelings of personal inadequacy, have a sense of diligence, hardly ever have a social life, and show inflexibility in thinking patterns.
Patients have a very limited emotional affect; genuine emotional displays (either positive or negative), are shallow or totally absent. Anorexics have a strong need to control what goes into their bodies. If they think they lack control in other part of their lives, only they have the authority to eat or not to eat.
A fairly new finding in the etiology of Anorexia Nervosa suggests that a lot of sufferers were physically or sexually ill-treated as children. As a result of this infringement to their bodies, they subconsciously seek to make themselves unsightly to avoid future sexual abuse. They share this characteristic with those suffering from Bulimia Nervosa where sufferers become fat to make themselves unappealing sexually.
Anorexia, appears to be exclusively the result of psychological factors that lead the sufferer into the extreme of self-starvation and obsessive exercise. Untreated, this situation is nearly always fatal.
Subsequent to reviewing the facts, it would seem that anorexia appears to be the sole consequence of psychological factors, all of which lead the sufferer to extreme self-starvation and obsessive behavior, and if left untreated this condition is always fatal.
It appears that anorexia is the result of many psychological factors combined to push the patient to starve themselves and exercise obsessively. One thing is for certain though: If left untreated, unfortunately anorexia nervosa can lead to death.
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