Anorexia Nervosa Health Center

It is estimated that one half to one percent of women in the United States suffers from anorexia nervosa, which amounts to between 8 and 15 million women. Men can suffer from anorexia as well, but because 90% of the people affected by the condition are women, it is primarily seen as women’s disease. Nonetheless, estimates show that there may be up to a million men who suffer from anorexia as well.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that is characterized by an extreme fear of gaining weight, an inability or refusal to maintain a healthy body weight, and usually causes a patient to have a distorted self image of his or her own body, often seeing themselves as overweight or imperfect. Patients can become very ill and the disease has the highest mortality rate of any eating disorder and psychiatric disorder.