The disease mainly involves people starving themselves. It starts with the victim feeling that she or he is overweight while the truth is exactly opposite. They start adopting measures to be thin. In the process, they harm themselves.

Anorexia is a disease that affects youngsters, mainly. The females are more susceptible to this vicious threat. However, middle-aged victims are not rare to find. The general trend, as far as the onset of disease is concerned has been found out to be the beginning of puberty.

The disease is threatening, primarily due to two reasons. First of all, it affects the young generation. The second one is a little more complex. The elite classes and the so called 'jet-setting' citizens of the world, both, propagate and give in to this madness to be thin. Beauty pageants and the glamour world worship the svelte look. Consequently, society also develops an interest in being thin which in this case has reached an unhealthy height.

The difficulty with anorexia is that the victims continue to believe that they are overweight, even when they are thin to the point of being fatal. As it is the mind which perceives wrongly and pushes a person to extremities, it is not uncommon to find people advocating quixotic reasons so as not to eat. Some have developed an aversion with eating in a group; some have taken recourse to the alibi of some fancy diet, so that they can carry on with their idiosyncrasies. The general tendency is to use laxatives heavily.

Professional dancers, actors and long distance runners have a tendency to fall a prey to anorexia nervosa as their profession necessitates a certain amount of thinness. As referred earlier, people belonging to the elite class of society, also have a propensity for developing this disease. In fact, the phrase 'Barbie-doll syndrome' evolved from a number of celebrity victims, all vying to be thin.

A patient needs a lot of understanding and care. A support-group of friends and family, come in handy while treatment is on. Anger, denial and mood-swings are common and an eating-disorder expert can always solve the problem, if his or her advice is well-heeded.

Shrunken bones, mineral loss and low body temperature, irregular heartbeat, permanent failure of normal growth, development of osteoporosis and bulimia are some of the common medical ailments that are triggered off by anorexia. The good news is that it is curable. Proper medical care and a great support group would do the trick.