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What is anorexia?

Anorexia simply means a loss of appetite. Anorexia nervosa is a psychological disturbance that is characterized by an intense fear of being fat. It usually affects teenage girls or young adult women, although it is increasingly affecting younger females, as well as males. This persistent "fat image," however untrue in reality, leads the patient to self-imposed starvation and emaciation (extreme thinness). Victims of anorexia nervosa may lose up to one-third of their body weight.

Anorexia nervosa is difficult to treat and can be fatal. Between 5 percent and 10 percent of patients hospitalized for this disease later die from starvation or suicide. Symptoms of anorexia nervosa include a loss of 25 percent or more of one's body weight (for no other known medical reason), accompanied by a morbid fear of being fat, an obsession with food, an avoidance of eating, compulsive exercising and restlessness, binge eating...

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