Anorexia Tips.......................................

According to the Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, anorexia is increasingly prevalent among boys and men, as well as girls and women also suffer from eating disorders.

Some leading symptoms of anorexia are as follows:
• Refusal to acknowledge the minimal body weight
• Dominating fear in spite of being under weight
• Social withdrawal and depression
• Disrupted sleep and fatigue
• Decrease in concentration and attention
• Problems in interaction with people
• Obsession with thoughts of food and weight control
• Lack of self perception
• Frequent disorders in mood, personality and behavior
• Overpowering importance to physical perfection and outlook

Regular treatment of anorexia combines both hospitalization and outpatient setting. At times, severe case of anorexia leads to organ dysfunction, which needs immediate hospitalization. The emergent goal of regular treatment of anorexia is to prevent malnutrition and at times, intravenous feeding is required for this case. Weight management can also be achieved through adopting the nutritional treatment. The treatment aids in gaining at least 3-4 pounds per week. But, the treatment should be based on the overall development of the patient rather than considering only the aspect of weight gain. Some of the potential therapies included in regular treatment are as follows:
• Group therapy
• Cognitive behavior therapy
• Individual therapy
• Family therapy

Anorexia is a common problem arising out of persistent digestion disorder. Anorexia patient, as a result to this, suffers from loss of appetite, unable to eat a proper diet. Also, there is general weakness and problems of sleeplessness. Anorexia affects the overall health. Anorexia is caused due to bad eating habits. Usually women tempted to reduce weight extremely, especially the size zero types suffer from anorexia.

Home remedies, along with psychological medication, helps in treating anorexia and the symptoms related to it. Home remedies for anorexia include apple, ginger, orange juice, lemon, garlic, grapes, warm water, mint, etc. Though extreme cases need medical consultation, yet anorexia can generally be kept at bay with healthy and convenient home remedies.

Some of the remedies of vital importance are as follows:
• Apple: Eating an apple a day stimulates surge of a protein digesting enzymes known as pepsin. This is useful in helping digestion.
• Ginger: Ginger is especially recommended for anorexia because it helps to enhance hunger. Ginger taken with rock salt every day, works miraculously on upset stomach.

• Orange Juice Therapy: Orange juice is not only a thirst quencher but is also a good therapy for anorexia. All you need to do is to have a glass of orange juice after every two hours throughout the day. Follow this for 2-3 days and you will see the worst of digestive system getting into right form. Remember not to take anything else in between. Basically, this methodology will cleanse the system thoroughly.
• Lemon: Lemon works greatly as a system cleanser. One lemon squeezed in a glass of lukewarm water with a pinch of salt, drunk in the morning, cleanses the system thoroughly. Add some ginger juice to make it more effective. Lemon tones up the system.
• Garlic: Take three to four cloves of garlic a day in what ever form like raw garlic, crushed garlic in soup and garlic boiled in water. Garlic helps in anorexia as it cleanses system and increases hunger. It helps in secretion of juices that cleanses digestive system.
• Sour Grapes: Have juice of sour grapes for dual purpose, improving appetite and digestive system. Remember to take this continuously every day for at least three weeks to get effective results.
• Warm Water: Water is the basic remedy to anorexia. Unless your digestive system is not cleansed, you will not feel hungry and your anorexia will not be cured. Water does the first step. Intake of warm water cleanses the digestive system.
• Mint: It is natural appetizer. Only 2 spoons of mint juice in the morning helps to increase your hunger. Within a few days of taking mint juice, you will see a marked change in your eating habit. You will feel more craving for food.
• Asafetida: This is a grandma’s treatment. Since ages, it has been believed that if you take a pinch of asafetida in a spoon of pure ghee, it will solve the problem of anorexia.
• Pineapple: Take a few pieces of pineapple regularly for breakfast and you will feel craving for food throughout the day.

Anorexia home remedies aim at improving digestion, increasing appetite and enhancing overall body health. The best part with home remedies is that they don’t have any side effects and are effective too. It is a must to take them regularly over period of time to reap good results.

Anorexia is a curable problem coupled with the right therapy and diet. You need to take proper diet and cleanse the digestive system. Taking one can easily do this or some of the above mentioned home remedies.

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The complete cure of anorexia goes a long way than simply weight gain of patients. Anorexia stricken patients who gain weight during treatment often spiral back into the eating disorder. New studies shed light on why relapse rates are so high.

The study shows that women who seemed to be getting better while participating in a hospital-based behavioral treatment program continued to show disturbed eating behaviors when their food intake was not carefully monitored.

The participant may have regained much of their lost weight with treatment along with improvements in depression and other psychological symptoms. However, they ate fewer calories when given an unrestricted test meal than women without anorexia.

“We saw a lot of psychological changes over the course of hospitalization,” researcher Robyn Sysko of the Rutgers University Eating Disorders Clinic, tells WebMD. “But when given more control over their eating, these patients still tended to eat less than they should.”

Examining eating behaviors
Most patients developed anorexia during their years as preteens, teens, or young adult. Nine out of 10 anorexics are female which research suggests that one in three women treated as inpatients for the eating disorder experiences a relapse within two years of discharge from the hospital.

Improvements in psychological symptoms and weight have been documented during hospitalization for anorexia nervosa. There is no clear evidence that similar improvement in eating disorder occurs. Sysko and colleagues write in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The tests were done with participants of 12 hospitalized women with anorexia and 12 women without eating disorders the same number of calories at breakfast followed by an unrestricted-calorie test meal at lunch.

The test meal consisted of a large strawberry yogurt shake. Study participants were told to drink as much or as little as they liked. The anorexic patients were given the test both early in their hospital stay and later, after they had gained back a good deal of weight.

The non-anorexic study participants ended up drinking about half of their shakes, taking in approximately 500 calories. Early in treatment the anorexic patients took in about 145 calories at the test meal, and later in treatment they took in 240, which is still less than half of that eaten by the women without anorexia nervosa.

During both test meals, the hospitalized patients took in fewer calories than they would have if they had been eating their regular, supervised lunch.

“The fact that these patients didn’t show as much improvement in eating behavior as they did in other aspects of their treatment illustrates the importance of continuing care once hospitalization ends,” Sysko says.

Follow-Up is a must
The research concluded that weight gain is merely an initial step towards anorexia recovery. Follow up care and treatment is emphasized to avoid relapse that ultimately hampers recovery from the said eating disorder.

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Anorexia can be difficult to understand for someone who is not suffering from it or is not a psychologist. It is taken negatively most often viewed as a lifestyle choice or a case of low esteem. You can lend a helping hand to your loved one by being supportive and understanding how you can help them in your own way.

Knowledge is power.

One of the important steps you can take is to research about anorexia. There are numerous websites offering in depth information on the mental and physical symptoms. Thoroughly understand the eating disorder including possible treatments and how you can help your loved one. Knowledge is power especially in this case.

An eating disorder goes far deeper than witnessing a person avoid food and eating it. The motivation of a person suffering from anorexia is driven by the negative feelings and mindset that convinces them to starve themselves. Eating develops into an anxiety-ridden act. It turns into their very worst fear. People suffering from anorexia thinks that a slightest bite of food will cause them to gain weight.

Why are they afraid to gain weight?

The thought of weight gain makes them feel as if they lose control and consequently are failures. Several reasons explain why the fear is so strong depending on the person. It could be a superficial reason such as the desire to be perfect. Starvation can also be a way of coping such as having control when they feel they have no control in any other part in life.

Ask them why they feel to choose to starve.

It is important to know why people suffering from anorexia opt to do this. If they say “because I want to be thin, ask them for a different reason. It is more than just the desire to be thin. It goes deeper than what meets the eye. It is highy likelythat they will either deny their eating disorder or they just don’t want to open up to you right away. All you need to do is to let them know you are their friend who is willing to listen. It will give them an outlet. It might take days, weeks, or even months before they choose to come to you and ask for help. The important thing is that you gave them an option.

Don’t make comments on your own weight issues or diet in front of them.

Consider these don’t you must not commit. It can really be tough for them to hear you say things such as not liking how you look too or counting calories out of fear of gaining weight. Don’t comment on their appearance either. You might tell them that they look fine, for them it means they look fat. You might tell them they look too thin, for them it serves as an encouragement to keep on doing what they’re doing. It is best to avoid making those comments altogether.

Give them understanding.

There are some people who dismiss anorexia as a cry for attention. The truth is that it is a very secretive disorder. They don’t want other people to know that they aren’t eating food off their plates. They tend to hide it by spreading food on their plate or cutting the food into tiny pieces. They may not be consciously asking for help but it is a subconscious cry for help. The physical evidence of weight loss is only a manifestation of the turmoil they are feeling inside. It is their message of saying “I’m lost”. These people are very fragile at this moment. You should understand them. Do not yell at them when you decide to confront them. That is the last thing they need to do. They need understanding and not discipline.

It is certainly frustrating to see someone you really care suffers from anorexia. Do not, however, make them eat by means of coercive or threatening the at the dinner table. You could end hurting them and closing yourself off to them.

Let them make a voluntary decision of entering a recovery center.

You can not force them to enter a hospital or recovery center for treatment of their problem. This could be a different story for minors or if you stand as their parent or guardian. When you threaten them with hospitalization will make them more distant from you. It could be possible that your loved one would give in to your request to seek help. Your loved one may undergo treatment and gain the needed weight just to lose it again. Not unless that person has a desire to recover from anorexia, he or she will just use the treatment to make you think that they’re doing okay and for you to leave them alone. The choice to recover from anorexia can only be made by the person himself, not you or anybody else.

It does not mean you just give up. You can tell them that recovery is worth it with facts and knowledge on how damaging anorexia does to their mind and body. AS I’ve mentioned earlier, knowledge is power. Let them know the consequences they will face in the long run if they choose to remain in the chains of anorexia. Just think of how dangerous it is when the longer a person suffers, the higher the chance he or she could die from heart failure. You don’t want to just sit there and lose your loved one out of neglect on your part.

The fact of the matter is that those suffering are not trying to need his or her life by not eating. Sad oo say, it is their way of coping and is their choice to live. It could be hard on your part on witnessing how a loved one is slowly wasting away.   You must also consider how they must feel going through it. If they know and have that assurance that their family and friends are there for them, it makes their struggle a little bit easier and little less daunting.

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Our mental image of anorexia shows somebody who looks so thin and hungry. There could be more than meets the eye. Anorexia nervosa takes a significant toll on the body. In fact, it has the highest death rate of any psychological illness. Five percent to twenty percent of people develop the disease and sooner or later die from it. The longer a person has it, the higher the chances of dying from the eating disorder.

Did you know that the damage that anorexia creates also reaches in the inside? What, exactly, could happen inside a human body subjected to this grim eating disorder? The bones and heart suffer the most. For those who survive, the disorder can damage almost every body system. Take a look at what anorexia does to the human body.

The bones are the first victim of anorexia.

The disease often develops in adolescence right at the time when young people are supposed to be building up the critical bone mass that will endure them through adulthood. Such bone loss can set in as soon as six months after anorexic behavior starts, and is one of the most irreversible draw back of the disorder.

The heart gets the most life-threatening damage.

Anorexia allows the body to lose muscle mass, at the same time; it loses heart muscle at a preferential rate. As an effect, the heart gets smaller and weaker. When people with anorexia engages in a strenuous exercise, it gets worse at increasing circulation in response to the physical activity, and the pulse and blood pressure get lower. This is the common reason for hospitalization in most people with anorexia.

While anorexia ultimately damages the bones and heart, it is also a multisystem disease. All of the body systems can’t escape its effects. About half of people suffering from anorexia have low white blood cell counts, with about a third are anemic. Both conditions can weaken the immune system’s resistance to disease, placing the person susceptible to infections.

Anorexia damage starts early

Medical consequences have long begun even before a person with anorexia starts to look “too thin”. Young women who start to severely restrict food intake experiences sudden loss of menstruation before serious weight loss sets in. Most of the people suffering from anorexia are teenage girls and young women whose ability to bear children can also be affected.The ability of anorexics to conceive is severely affected based on the rate of recovery. The rate, frequency, and number of pregnancies of fully recovered anorexics are normal.

When we look at fertility clinics having those patients who have infrequent or absent periods, they may think they’re fully recovered but their weight hasn’t gotten high enough. Many women with anorexia would rather select fertility treatment for their eating disorder instead of having the eating disorder treated. Women who have fully recovered from bulimia and anorexia have a slightly higher rate of miscarriages and caesarean sections. In addition to, a 30% higher incidence of postpartum depression as compared to other women.

Damage from Anorexia May Be Reversible
Now that we know the complications of anorexia, here is good news. The key to turn around the complications of anorexia is to return to a normal weight. The main goal for anorexia recovery is to restore the weight to reverse outcomes. It is the most essential part of the treatment and is an essential first step in recovery and treatment.

The common misconception of anorexia is that it is exclusively a psychological disorder. Too many people ignore the medical complications of anorexia not until the patient becomes visibly and lethally thin. Medical practitioners need to understand that a good therapist is only a part of the treatment for anorexia and other eating disorders, and these patients need treatment from a medical doctor as well.

Studies shows that many people who require treatment for anorexia are not actively seeking any treatment. The cost of treatment could be the reason why they chose to remain passive and not seek any treatment. Inpatient treatment can cost more than $30,000 per month, while outpatient treatment can run as much as $100,000 per year.

A huge issue of anorexia recovery is the access to care. The number of sessions for a long-term care can be as many as 40 sessions. In turn, the monthly cost of sessions goes up to $800. Each session can cost. Most health insurance companies only pay for an average of 10 to 15 treatment sessions for people with eating disorders. Eating disorders are not considered to be more serious than cancer. It’s been treated like it’s voluntary and willful as opposed being a serious, life-threatening psychiatric and medical illness.

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The Maudsley method is comparatively new approach to anorexia treatment. While some methods focus on the causes of eating disorders, the Maudsley method does not. This method does not simply view anorexia nervosa as a dangerous illness with a priority of increasing the consumption of calories. The entire family is involved to play an active role to help the person with anorexia to get the nutrition she or he needs.

The Maudsley Method

The most unique feature of the Maudsley method is its use of family of the person with anorexia. Nobody is blamed for the development of the eating disorder even parents. It is quite the opposite in this method wherein parents are empowered to assess the situation in a different way. Parents are taught to find their own systems to help children to eat. It includes creating healthy consequences after non compliance with the set eating plans. The main essence is to link the parents and their child to work towards a common goal of dealing with the eating disorder.

Priority of Maudsley method

The Maudsley method addresses the physical aspect as the initial priority. This approach has numerous benefits. Its immediate action must be consciously done by the person with anorexia to start the process of healthy eating. The person who suffers form anorexia needs help on dealing with weight gain issues. By applying the Maundsley method to these patients, it will improve the functioning of mental and physical functioning. It will also help them to deal with other counseling issues more effectively.

Phases of the Maudsley method

The first phase of treatment is to help the child gain weight. Parents are greatly encouraged to avoid force and punishment. A rewards system is followed based on the child’s ability to function. The child is gauged according to his or her physical level and fitness to draw a line. Say, a child is too weak physically to participate in sports then the child’s participation requires a certain weight or strength level.

The second phase of treatment requires transferring control of eating back to the child. The only time that the child can regain of control in eating is to demonstrate a good weight gain to begin to assume responsibility for her own eating.

The third phase starts when the child maintains a weight of 95% of her target weight without significant supervision from her parents. During this phase, the child begins individual therapy. It highlights and addresses the issues during childhood and adolescence which may have been relatively untreatable prior to weight gain.

Considerations to make before starting the Maudsley method

The major strength of the Maudsley method is its high parental involvement. Parents are needed to invest time and energy to attain the goals of the treatment. It is usually advised for parents to settle differences between them and their child to embark in the common struggle to fight eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa.

Pros and cons of the Maudsley method

Pros

Involvement of the family especially parents
No blame is given on anybody as the cause of the eating disorder
Initially focuses on the physical problems Encourages immediate action

Cons

More control to parents thus may not be appropriate to most dysfunctional family systems
High parental effort is needed to enforce food plan
Not suitable for those with a chronic eating disorder, aged 18 or older

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Anorexia nervosa most often develops during adolescence. A young person may not realize that he or she is starving not until anorexia becomes fatal. Anorexia is a very serious psychological illness that causes severe and debilitating emotional and physical problems. Our understanding of anorexia nervosa as an eating disorder is limited especially on how to treat adolescents suffering from this eating disorder.

It is unclear on what the exact causes of anorexia nervosa are. Poor self body image often results to severe dieting and drastic weight loss associated with the struggles to cope with the escalating psychological and social demands of adolescence. The absorption with food and weight becomes a way to avoid or be distracted form these seemingly impossible demands to achieve the “ideal” thin look. On the other hand, it shows that prolonged severe dieting and weight loss are behaviors that, once turns into a habit, perpetuate the distorted beliefs around eating, food, and body image resulting to an obsession. It is unclear what the target of the treatment should be. Should it start by focusing on the anxieties around adolescence or should it initially address the health effects of severe dieting and weight loss?

Treatment Approaches
Outpatient treatment for anorexia includes two standard approaches. The most common of these treatments is the individual psychodynamic therapy, which usually assumes that the root cause relates to developmental anxieties about the physical changes associated with puberty, the social demands of adolescence, and the developmental task of separating from parents. Treatment involves exploring and attempting to resolve the young person’s anxieties related to these issues while encouraging him or her to eat sensibly and gain weight. Parents may be included in such treatments, but they are usually asked to support the adolescent’s independence and refrain from trying to change behaviors related to food and weight.

Family therapy is another approach that examines ways in which the family may be a factor in the development or perpetuation of the young person’s illness. It looks at ways on how the family can help to resolve any conditions that may have caused it. The therapist targets family processes, including inappropriate alliances within the family, communication problems, conflict or avoidance of conflict, and suppression of individuation and separation among family members, particularly the adolescent. The family may discover that the symptoms of anorexia nervosa help to maintain dysfunctional adaptations by diverting attention away from family difficulties. When these dysfunctional patterns are addressed, the young person will no longer feel pressure to save the family from facing its problems by using anorexia to avoid age-appropriate developmental tasks.

The family treatment has three phases that happens in a course of 6 to 12 months. The first phase focuses on helping the parents take up the task of re-feeding their adolescent. Parents are educated about the seriousness of the illness and dire medical and psychological consequences. The next step is to encourage and support in the use of their authority, skill, love, and knowledge of their child to effect changes in eating behaviors.

This can take many forms, but usually includes a period of time during which parents prepare all meals and monitor their child’s eating and exercise behaviors. This often means keeping the child home from school and taking off time from work for a few weeks. During this phase the therapist helps the parents stay on task and avoid other distractions while also providing encouragement and support.

The second phase begins when the adolescent is nearing the normal weight and resuming to normal eating behaviors. During this phase, the parents gradually start to turn over control of eating and related behaviors back to their teenager. The therapist helps parents identify when they feel ready and safe to begin this process and reviews the strategies they employ in this transition. At this time, the adolescent is learning and experimenting with greater independence while still suffering anorexic thoughts, which slows down weight gain. However, as the adolescent is out of immediate physical danger, this can be tolerated to allow for slower mastery of the eating under their own control. Toward the end of phase 2, the treatment turns to the relationship between eating and adolescent issues. For example, therapy may focus on the difficulties faced when eating at social events, on dates, and at school. Once the adolescent has achieved full control of eating and anorexia nervosa is not part of the daily struggle for the adolescent or parents, the third phase of treatment begins. The aim of this phase is to help the parents and the patient make sure that any hurdles that may have developed as a result of anorexia nervosa are overcome. For example, due to the illness, the adolescent may have fallen behind in school, become socially isolated, or grown more dependent on the parents. The therapist assists the family to identify and address these issues and then terminates treatment.

The question on which treatment is better than the other is decision best left on the hands of health professionals. The fact of the matter is nobody knows for sure the single, best treatment for eating disorders. Many advocates of different treatments believe strongly about their methods. There is no ideal treatment tailor that guarantees a quick recovery form such eating disorder, but it’s encouraging that the options of treatment for anorexia nervosa continue to grow.

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Anorexia is a life threatening eating disorder that could take years to complete recovery. The path to self “rediscovery” is synonymous to the concept of recovery from anorexia. It takes a lot of support from family, friends, and community to overcome anorexia. Find out more on how to love yourself to overcome the battle with anorexia.

Anorexics often reports the advantages of complementing medical care with anorexia self help approaches. You can defeat anorexia nervosa with a combination of medical and psychological interventions. The thought of fighting the war against anorexia is a stressful health issue that can be resolved with the following strategies.

Healing the physical aspect

Anorexia nervosa can cause the most consistently serious medical problems of any psychological disorder. Food is substantially necessary for the body to function thus the absence or inadequate of food intake can yield numerous health problems such as digestive problems, weakened cardiovascular system, muscle and bone problems, reproductive system problems, kidney damage, dangerously low electrolyte levels, weakened immune system from starvation, dry skin, brittle nails, fragile, dry hair, and growth of “lanugo” or a soft layer of hair all over the body as an attempt to keep the body warm. It is important to undergo a series of laboratory tests and consult a physician on the current health status of an anorexic. In this way, nutrition counseling can be undertaken to determine the extent of the damage and possible medical intervention deemed best and suitable.

Negative body image

Anorexia perceives food to be a negative factor that contributes to a negative body image. Cognitive therapy can be used as a way to help you take control of your thought processes. Once you think food as indispensable nourishment then the healing process is initiated. Changing the behavior is a great challenge as a mind inclined to think of negative body image associated to food.

Eating disorders such as anorexia can be overcome when medical and psychological problems are addressed. Behavioral interventions are also needed to rehabilitate people with anorexia. There are complex thought that work on many different levels resulting to eating disorders. The self help plan you select should complement the medical and psychological interventions designed by your physician and psychiatrist. The sublimal mind is taped to deal with unreasoning behaviors where they start to from.

Psychological aspect

There is an undiscerning physique perception which is most often negative and exaggerated fat body image that most anorexics think they are. Even when they are stick thin, they strive to lose more weight. Self hypnosis is an illusory beam which can produce glorious results. It enables participants to daydream about themselves and replacing impractical images in a mind’s eye. When participants see themselves realistically then a reduction is expected to occur and gradually break the disastrous patterns of behavior.

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