As she gazed around the small room, her mind flashed back to the night before. She had gone into an uncontrollable rage, eating everything in sight. After weeks of living on nothing but water and crackers, she was tired and angry. Empty wrappers and bags lay generously scattered across the floor. Her body was weak and her head was spinning. Her raw throat burned as she tried to swallow the filmy taste that caked the inside of her mouth. Her tummy loudly grumbled from the torture it had endured. She tried to stand but her weak knees could not hold her thin body. She craved food and healthy mind but she was being controlled by her anger. The lack of courage this young woman had was killing her. Being a victim of anorexia nervosa is a very painful disease to overcome. Many men and women lose their lives to this deadly disease.
Many male and female Americans suffer from an eating disorder. Raymond Corsini explains that eating disorders are basically a preoccupation with body image or shape and food, which disturbs normal eating behavior (453). Eating disorders are curable and can be prevented. "An eating disorder is not a disease, it is a set of behaviors that has no known cause" (Apostolicles Introduction). Once diagnosed with an eating disorder, the road to recovery is very long and overwhelming. Many tend to give up, but the strong ones that finish their marathon tend to live a normal, healthy, and happy life.
The most common and deadly eating disorder is anorexia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa is simply defined as self-starvation. It is an eating disorder caused by refusing to eat and not maintaining eighty-five percent of expected body weight. Anorexics have a tremendous fear of gaining weight or becoming fat. They also have a very distorted body image (Apostolicles xiii). Anorexia nervosa is commonly found in adolescent females and the number of males with this behavior is quickly rising.