Over consciousness about any matter is the first characteristic that can be easily noted in a teen. Teenage is the time when children enter the doors of a new world where there thoughts, physical appearance, mentality, everything changes. Their way of judging or seeing a matter also changes. In short, teenage changes a child totally and the difficulty arises when neither the child nor the parents try to adjust with the changes. Being conscious about weight is also one of the major issues that frustrate teens. Looking slim and gorgeous is the dream of teen girls and looking handsome and smart is the ambition of boys. Today no one is interested in looking healthy or gaining weight; actually loosing weight is there priority. But many times there so much bothering nature creates problem for them. This problem, in biological terms, is called “Anorexia Nervosa”. The most affected population includes teen girls from around the world. Only five percent of anorexics include boys or adolescents who are either athletes or dancers.

Anorexia is mainly caused due to self starvation. Teenagers have the tendency of taking a diet that can keep them “slim and smart” but they don’t know about the difference between a balanced diet and the diet which they prefer for being so called slim. Being slim means to have a controlled and defined posture and figure and not to be a stick with no energy to face blows. Teens in the process of losing weight limit themselves to a restricted diet ex- not having more than 2 chapattis in lunch or dinner or having just milk in breakfast. Sometimes they try to live on just salad and juices. Children doing that gain the psychological tendency of feeling fat, not paying any attention towards their weight. Adopting such mentality forces them to eat limited supplies and when they sometimes eat more than there daily meals, then they may vomit. An anorexic also gains the tendency of exercising more than required. In other words we can say that this disease makes the person to kill himself with no effort from others.

Anorexia can be defined as a slow killer. Hallucinating, teens think that they are becoming thin, smart, and slim but in turn they lose hairs, they become nervous, their skin starts drying up etc. As the disease progress kidney failure, loss of bone mass i.e. weakening of bones is common to see. The worst consequence is that about 6 percent of cases related to this disease result in death. Anorexia is commonly found in teens of America but slowly it is spreading among the teens of India as well. So, all possible ways must be tried to limit its spread.

An anorexic must be sent for counseling where he/she can be told about the aspects related to the disease they are suffering from and can be slowly dispatched from his/her thinking. Many times, if the line is crossed, then they have to arrange appointments with doctors and go through nutritional therapy or hospitalization. To avoid this all, teens must become health conscious rather that appearance conscious. They must eat and drink healthy and depend upon yoga and exercise for becoming fit and strong. If suffering from the disease and want to quite the habit, then the patient try to come up from the fear of food, eat easily digestible but healthy food and have extra calcium and multi-vitamins. To provide support to the patient, he/she should be monitored and it should be seen that they are actually eating. To be healthy must be the first choice of teens and they must always remember that --
“PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE”.




Sources: FOOD THAT HARM, FOOD THAT HEAL by Reader’s Digest.