Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric disorder that involves the inability to eat due to fear of excess weight gain. A person with this disorder is typically a young female between the ages of 15 and 23, although studies have included all age groups and males as well. The anorexic has a distorted image and even when thin, they look in the mirror and see a heavy person.

Research studies on anorexia have shown that between 0.5 and 3.7 females will suffer from anorexia nervosa.

It is characterized by starving behaviors, odd eating habits, such as “fad diets” involving one or two groups of foods in limited quantities, carefully measuring these quantities or portions out, lack of or infrequent menstrual periods, obsessive weighing of oneself sometimes several times a day, excessive exercising, and the use of laxatives, diuretics, and enemas – all with the expressed focus of losing weight and controlling their environment.

Research has shown that some of these individuals will have a single episode or bout of anorexia and others will have episodes that wax and wane over several years with frequent periods of normalcy and relapses.

Individuals with anorexia nervosa have a mortality rate of 0.56% a year. This figure is 12 times higher than the average death rate of others in their peer group.

Research studies have shown that approximately 50% of these individuals with anorexia nervosa will suffer from “bone thinning” or otherwise known as osteoporosis. This bone loss is equivalent to a woman who is in the 70-year-old to 80-year-old age bracket.