Word: anorexia
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...textbook definition of anorexia nervosa is "a chronic illness principally affecting young girls after puberty. It is characterized by severe weight loss which is self-induced, amennorhea [loss of period], and a specific psychopathology." However, after a century of research on anorexia nervosa, this definition does not hold up well. The psychopathological basis for the disease is still not defined specifically enough to bring doctors who treat anorexia to a consenus on its cause. Furthermore, one in ten diagnosed anorexics is male...
...widely accepted definition of anorexia is not likely to emerge soon. Anorexic patients are perhaps too rare and too scattered to support large conclusive research studies; large hospitals admit only ten to twelve anorexic patients a year, people whose self-starvation has put their lives in danger, who have lost more than 20 per cent of their normal body weight...
Generally anorexics are achievement-oriented, very intelligent, very depressed people. They are hyperactive, spending enormous amounts of time exercising to burn off calories, and they are very nervous. Most anorexics come from upper class or uppermiddle class homes where food is plentiful; few come from lower class homes, and anorexia is rarely reported in developing countries...
...Anorexia is a mystery disease; doctors disagree over practically everything about it. The leading expert on it is Dr. Hilde Bruch, who has been observing anorexics for more than 35 years and has written a book on them. Bruch has developed a psychological composite portrait of the typical anorexic victim: they were, she says, model children who behaved with robot-like obedience because they doubted their abilities to stand up for and assert themselves. Their dieting usually began inexplicably, following trivial remarks about their appearance or upon a change of environment, like going to camp or college. In new situations...
Family life plays the greatest role in Bruch's theory of who gets anorexia and why. "It is possible," she writes, "that the success, achievement, and appearance orientation of these families is in some way related to the patient's driving search for something that will earn him respect." Despite the apparent stability in the anorexic's home--very few come from broken homes--Bruch finds in the parents a deep disillusionment with each other. They are competing secretly to prove which is the better parent. The mother is likely to be an achievement-oriented woman, frustrated in her aspirations...