Anorexia is an eating disorder with psychological inflections. Anorexia usually affects young girls and women, with fewer incidences found in men. Anorexia begins at the onset of puberty in girls. Those suffering from anorexia starve themselves because they fear eating may make them fat. As a consequence of this self-imposed starvation, weight loss is common in anorexics. Weight loss without any pathological cause makes anorexics very skinny, and yet they feel they are very fat.

This unfounded apprehension of becoming fat further complicates the anorexic’s state of health, since they compromise more and more on the quantity of food intake. Chronic anorexics refuse to eat, even if they are severely ill or about to die.

It has been observed that this disorder is more prevalent in whites than in blacks. It is normally found among artists whose body weight may impair their artistic performances in one way or another, like theatre artists, dancers, distance runners, and singers. People from high socioeconomic groups are the most affected.

A number of factors are responsible for causing anorexia. These factors stem from biological to cultural underpinnings and causes related to lifestyle to familial dispositions. Biological factors may be related to certain unwanted hormonal changes in the body. Cultural factors could be related to certain cultures’ penchants for looking good, which is true for some women in America. A stressful lifestyle can be another reason to trigger bouts of anorexia; there could also be a genetic link.

Medical risks associated with anorexia are bone mineral loss, altered heartbeats, stunted growth, low body temperature, brittle bones or osteoporosis, as well as another related condition called bulimia nervosa. Anorexia can also result in reduced body immunity and consequently serious illnesses.

Anorexics can be treated, but the treatment is more based on a patient’s own understanding of the dangers of not eating rather than on therapeutic drugs inducing hunger. Anorexics, if not treated, die earlier.