Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes an eating disorder characterized by low body weight and body image distortion with an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Individuals with anorexia are known to commonly control body weight through the means of voluntary starvation, purging, vomiting, excessive exercise, or other weight control measures, such as diet pills or diuretic drugs. Anorexia is increasingly common, especially among young women in industrialized countries where cultural expectations encourage women to be thin.

Physical Signs
• Scanty or absent menstrual periods
• Thinning hair
• Dry skin
• Cold or swollen hands and feet
• Bloated or upset stomach

Psychological Signs
• Distorted perception of self (that is, a great difference between how an individual believes they look and their actual physical appearance)
• Inability to remember things
• Poor judgment
• Refusal to acknowledge the gravity of the illness
• Obsessive-compulsive behavior (excessive need to control personal environment)
• Depression (feelings of ineffectiveness, loss of interest in friends and former activities, lack of spontaneity, rigid thinking, lack of initiative, flattened emotional response, irritability, insomnia, and diminished interest in sex)

Behavioral Symptoms
• Unusual behaviors related to food or eating (for example, hoarding or concealing food, refusing to eat in public, eating only one type of food, ritually cutting food into tiny pieces, intense study of diets and calories, planning and preparing elaborate meals for others)
• Compulsive exercising
• Preoccupation with body size or body image
• Preoccupation with weight control, dieting