You can be anorexic without necessarily being just skin and bones. This eating disorder, which affects women more often and most often appears between the ages of 14 and 17, does not always manifest itself in a state of thinness, contrary to what one might think. This is what experts from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, the largest research center specializing in childhood in Australia, in collaboration with the University of Melbourne, say.
The researchers note a five-fold increase in the number of teenage girls admitted to the center for anorexia. Main observation: these patients present all the clinical criteria of this eating disorder except for theBMI which does not indicate underweight but normal corpulence.
To draw this conclusion, the Australian specialists observed the patients admitted to the establishment for six years.
In the end, it is not corpulence but more the evolution of weight loss, and in particular too rapid weight loss that should alert, summarizes the study. teenagersyour who lose a lot of pounds should benefit from evaluation and management by doctors.
An overweight teenager can become anorexic
the diagnosis of anorexia nervosais posed when a person suffers from several symptoms: an abnormal diet (restriction, avoidance of certain foods, refusal to eat, bulimic phases), induced vomiting and/or taking laxatives, a weight problem (BMI less than 17.5 kg/m2), a truncated and distorted perception of oneself and one’s body or a refusal to recognize one’s thinness, a lack of self-esteem (feeling of having control over one’s body, fear of gaining weight) , and absence of menstruation for at least 3 months.
Eating disorders can occur at any age and anorexia can even affect overweight adolescents, the study says. “Healthcare professionals should be alerted by patients who lose weight rapidly even though their BMI is normal,” she concludes.