Do not for a moment think that anorexia cannot touch your family. It is very possible that your own daughter may be suffering from it, and you have not recognized the warning signs yet.

The following is a list of signs that act as strong indicators that a person is suffering from anorexia. If your daughter or a loved one in your family is showing any one or a combination of these symptoms, you may have a case of anorexia on your hands, and would do well to seek immediate professional help.

• The person has a distorted image of herself. Even though she is actually painfully thin, she considers herself to be fat.
• The person looks at the mirror all the time, and checks her weight multiple times each day. She also wears loose clothing to hide the ‘fat’.
• The person tries all kinds of ways to lose weight. These can include throwing up, using laxatives, skipping meals regularly and taking diet pills as well, rigorous exercising – in short, using every tactic possible to ensure weight loss.
• The person is almost always moody and depressed.
• She refuses to eat food when other people are around. Even when she does, it is a miniscule amount.
• She suffers from frequent fainting bouts.
• There is a steady deterioration in her school grades.
• She is gradually withdrawing into a shell, cutting people off from her life and becoming more introverted.

The Physiological Impact of Anorexia

The physiological impact of anorexia is all too apparent with the passage of time. It affects almost each body part of the person suffering from it.

It also affects the lives of the people around the patient, as they have to see the person close to them literally withering away right in front of their eyes.

When you deprive the body of essential food and nutrition, the results are going to impact the entire body, and anorexics run the risk of suffering from multiple health complications – from an upset electrolyte balance to a slower heart rate.

Osteoporosis also looms large in the background, as lack of essential nutrients can cause irreparable weakening of the bones. The following are some of the physiological changes wrought by anorexia.

• The immediate impact that anorexia has on a patient is the lowering drastically of the body weight. In most cases, the body weight reduces by 15 percent.
• Anorexia disrupts the functioning of the endocrine glands. This can cause amenorrhoea, or the stoppage of menstruation, in girls.
• Anorexia is the cause for hypotension, as well as other serious ailments such as bradycardia, which is a slowing of the heart rate, anemia, which is a lowering of the hemoglobin count in the blood, as well as a reduced metabolism rate.
• Anorexia impacts the electrolyte and mineral levels in the body.
• Anorexia reduces the immunity levels of a patient’s body, leaving her easily susceptible to different ailments. This corresponds to a reduction in the WBC count of the patient. The circulation of blood is also affected, causing the patient to suffer from frequent bouts of pins and needles.
• Anorexia causes the hair of a patient to become brittle, and may also cause hair loss.
• Other physiological changes include fluid deposition in the ankles, and also in the area around the eyes through the course of the night.

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