clinical features
Last reviewed 08/2022
Possible features include:
- a body weight more than 15% below the standard weight for a person's height, age and sex or BMI less than 17.5 in adults. In pre-pubertal children, growth and physical development may be affected and puberty delayed (1)
- an intense desire to be thin
- amenorrhoea in women
- restricted carbohydrate and fat intake
- individuals may become preoccupied with food and enjoy cooking for other people
- 50% suffer periods of binge eating with the consequent guilt and remorse
- binges are seen as a loss of control
- self-induced vomiting in 50%
- use of laxatives or diuretics in 50%
- vigorous exercising
- there may be a lack of sexual interest in females and males with anorexia nervosa
- the "core psychopathology" consists of a characteristic set of extreme concerns about shape and weight, often believing:
- that to be valued one must be thin
- that one must maintain strict control over one's food intake
- body shape misperception (overestimation of body size)
- no true "anorexia" (i.e. loss of appetite) except in very extreme cases
- features that may be largely secondary to starvation e.g. depressed mood, impaired concentration, social withdrawal
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