Anorexic persons refuse to maintain a normal weight for their age and height and continue to lose weight. They are terrified about the fact that they could get fat and this is why they eat less and less every day. They are so desperate that they can not see that they are underweight, their mind is affected by this disease and all they see on their body is fat. They deny their eating problems and make up excuses for their strange eating habits. They eat only some foods which they consider to be good and even weight and portion the food. After a while these women will have a lack in their menstrual periods and will become infertile, all due to the intense loss of weight.

In order to control their weight better they exercise a lot and even use laxatives or vomit after eating. In young girls the process of growing up is delayed and the first menstruation fails to come.

Some of these women recover well after such an episode; some gain weight for a while but they end up having another anorexia crisis and some even die due to heart affections and electrolyte imbalance. Suicide is not excluded is such persons.

Doctors follow the signs and symptoms a patient comes with and after analyzing them they diagnose that person with an illness. Sometimes an anorexic person analyses its symptoms and those read in a medical book for example and thinks that if she has not got all the written symptoms she is not suffering of anorexia. This is wrong, because not all the symptoms must be present in order to be affected of anorexia. These symptoms are different in one patient and another. For example you can be underweight and have a fear of getting fat but still have menstruation. This does not exclude you from being a possible anorexic person. This only means that the disease is not yet so advanced in order to make your menstruation fail from coming. Therefore the family must guide them towards a special clinic of eating disorders in order to get them cured of this serious condition.

Also, there are two types of anorexic people: those who eat a lot and then go and throw up all they have eaten and those who are very careful with what they eat and do not throw up regularly.