U01d2 Eating Disorders Patricia Jones I have chosen the eating disturbance of anorexia nervosa. Explaining, the historical pattern of disturbances related to eating, I found this to be of considerable interest to me. Anorexia nervosa was first introduced in the medical literature by, ( William Gull, 1874) and first in the year 1684 and in the Western world. Anorexia affects an estimated eight people out of 100,000 per year. It's not clear how many of them are male. However, women take the lead nationally. The term anorexia nervosa was first coined in 1988. A doctor writing the British medical journal, the Lancet, used the term to describe people who, although thin and weak, insisted that they needed to lose weight and would not eat a sufficient amount of food to remain alive. Anorexia nervosa is a nervous, psychological eating disorder characterized by a refusal to eat, even to the point of starvation. Other symptoms include an intense fear of becoming fat that never goes away, no matter how thin the individual becomes; extreme activity and an obsession with working out; negative feelings about the way the body looks; deep feelings of shame; and problems with drug and or alcohol abuse, and most of the people who suffer from this disorder are female.

Anorexia typically appears during adolescence, the incidence of eating disorders, particularly among young women in the United States, has escalated dramatically during the past decade, an estimated 8 million Americans struggle with anorexia, according to the, National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and associated diseases (ANAD). And, theoretically eating disorders are not limited to teenage girls. Women age 40 and older are also susceptible to low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, may be the cause, producing psychological