The Signs and Symptoms of Anorexia

NOTE: Not everyone will display all signs

Behavioural Signs

With Food

• Repeatedly avoiding meals (saying “I’ll eat later”, “ I ate with friends”)
• Refuse to eat with the family or in front of people
• Reduction in amount and types of food eaten
• Not wanting to eat what everyone else is having
• Lie to family and friends about how much they have eaten
• Become very deceptive around food and eating – ie. they may eat a normal size dinner with the family but this could be all they have eaten that day
• Eating meals but extremely restless or guilty after the meal as their anxiety grows
• Pre-occupation with food and feeding others (counting calories, reading recipes)
• Unusual eating habits (eg. preference for foods of a certain texture or colour, eating with a teaspoon, adding lots of condiments)
• Compulsively arranging food and/or cutting into tiny pieces
• Very rigid around food – only eating particular types of food or at certain times.
• Eating unusual mixtures of food
• Denying hunger
• Dieting when not overweight

Other

• Frequent weighing
• Talking about new diets and expressing the desire to be thinner
• Increasing isolation, disinterest in social activities, work and /or study
• Social Withdrawal and intolerance of others
• Excessive exercising
• Wearing baggy clothes
• Deny being ill

Emotions & Thoughts

• Distorted body image: believes they are fat even when very thin
• General dissatisfaction with appearance and figure. Expressing the desire to change
• Extreme concern about appearance, both physical and behavioural
• Thinking in extremes (If I’m not thin, I’ll be grossly obese)
• General apathy and/or depressive outlook on life
• Moodiness, irritability, depression, argumentative – especially around meal times
• Inflexibility
• Oversensitive to criticism
• Feel very guilty about eating
• Have black and white thinking about food. ie good food & bad food
• Have low self esteem
• Have a need for perfection
• Have periods of depression

Physical

Signs of Starvation / Malnutrition / Underweight

• Significant weight loss in the absence of a related illness. However, not always – with young people it may be the case that they just don’t grow and put on weight
• Thinning of Hair or hair loss
• Appearance of fine raised white hair (lanugo) on the body
• Bloated appearance of stomach
• Yellowish appearance of the palms or soles of feet
• Dry, pale, pasty Skin
• Loss of periods (amenorrhea) or irregular periods