Title: Anorexia Nervosa: Eating Disorder or a Phobia?

You are already crossing the line between normal dieting and an eating disorder if you are doing the following:
1. You exercise for 2 hours because you took one bite in one slice of calorie packed cream pie.
2. You would want to skip family or office events where you will have a strong urge to eat.
3. You get depressed when you look at the mirror because all you see is fat, fat, fat.
4. You are afraid to eat and you are afraid to get fat.
5. You start checking the labels for the calorie content of everything that you eat.

If you see these signs, take them as red flags.  These are the early signs of an Anorexia Nervosa. 

If you look at the signs, you will ask yourself:  Is Anorexia Nervosa an eating disorder or a phobia on food?

Anorexia Nervosa as an Eating Disorder

Eating disorders are different from a normal healthy diet because the person having an eating disorder is not taking care of the body while dieting.  The person becomes obsessed with being thin and will do anything just to achieve thinness even if those ways can be detrimental to her health. 

A common type of eating disorder is Anorexia Nervosa.  In this condition, the patient experiences and obsession to be thin.  The person feels that she is not thin enough.  Dieting go to extremes like starving oneself so that no calories will enter the body, exercising too much to sweat off the calories even if the person has just eaten a slice of cake, checking all the labels of the food that she eats to see the calorie content.  Everything is about calories and fats and how to avoid it. 

Anorexia Nervosa is a serious condition because if the person continues to deprive herself of food, she will eventually lose all the nutrients needed by the body.  Advanced cases of Anorexia Nervosa experiences amenorrhea (lack of menstrual period), sleep deprivation, fainting spells.  Patients with Anorexia Nervosa usually deny that they have the disease which makes the condition hard to treat.

Anorexia Nervosa as a Phobia

There is one perspective that views Anorexia Nervosa as phobia (phobia of food).  This is because patients suffering from Anorexia Nervosa experience an aversion from food because they see food as a source of fat.

So, is Anorexia Nervosa an eating disorder or a phobia?

Both.  Anorexia Nervosa can be viewed as both an eating disorder and a phobia because it both fits in the qualifications for the two.  This is important to note however than during the treatment of Anorexia Nervosa, both are considered.  The person with Anorexia Nervosa is first treated to restore the lost nutrients and to restore the normal weight of the person.  Since it is also viewed as a phobia, patients with Anorexia Nervosa undergo psychotherapy to rule out the cause of the phobia and to determine how it can be fixed.  Like other phobias, it may take a while before one can fully recover from this condition.

Filed under: Anorexia nervosa

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