the.com/anorexia
An eating disorder that distorts self-perception and can seriously harm a person's health.
means A serious eating disorder marked by self-starvation and an intense fear of gaining weight, often tangled up with a distorted body image.
from Straight from Greek: 'an-' (without) plus 'orexis' (appetite, desire), so literally 'without appetite.' It entered medical English in the 1800s, though the word's clinical sense narrowed over time — early uses could describe simple appetite loss from any illness, while 'anorexia nervosa' was coined to single out the psychological condition specifically, pinning the 'nervosa' (nervous, of the mind) onto the older Greek root.
- deadliest psychiatric illness
- highest mortality rate of any mental disorder
- not about vanity
- control and anxiety drive it more than appearance
- brain on starvation
- malnourishment itself warps judgment, fueling the cycle
- affects all bodies
- diagnosed far less often in larger bodies, missed longer