Many people with eating disorders are not aware of their physical feelings of hunger and satisfaction. Thus, they lack a natural control of their eating. Such people will easier be pulled into eating disorders, where they use eating to conceal feelings and escape from constructive problem solutions.
When beauty queens of former times and nowadays are compared it is obvious that they have become much slimmer. An appearance which was considered normal 50 years ago is rare today. Most women today feel that they are under an obligation to be slim. This results in an increasing number of them getting eating disorders. .
Anorexia often begins in an attempt to be slimmer. A person can get problems with self-image and eating through ideals which are spread by mass media. Many young women with a normal body shape get the idea that they are overweight and start slimming even though it is harmful for them. .
It is normal for women to be a bit rounder than men. Their hormones function best when about a quarter of the body weight is made by subcutaneous fat. Parents can help their children to develop a proper feeling of hunger. They can help the child to recognize its true feelings. For example, they should only give a child food when it is physically hungry. Food should never be used as a reward or comfort of some kind. It should only be associated with genuine physical hunger. The foundation for an eating disorder is often laid during the first year of a child's life, but its development continues throughout its entire upbringing. The same genetic factors which predispose addictive disorders such as alcoholism and drug addiction also increase the risk of eating disorders. This is a consequence of the fact that both excessive eating and fasting stimulate the reward centre in the brain in the same way as drugs do.
Some signs of anorexia are; the person in question refuses to maintain even a minimally normal body weight for their age and height.