It's got a fancy Latin name: anorexia nervosa, "nervous want of appetite." It's a killer. One in 10 cases ends in death. People with anorexia starve themselves by eating far too little food. Eventually they become dangerously thin -- yet they still see themselves as fat. People with this eating disorder may become so undernourished that they have to be hospitalized. Even then they often deny that anything is wrong with them. Anorexia usually begins around the time of puberty. Nine out of 10 people with anorexia are female; one in 100 U.S. women is anorexic. Technically, anorexia is when a person eats so little that their weight drops at least 15% below normal body weight. Often anorexia is linked to another eating disorder, bulimia, in which people periodically go on eating binges and then forces themselves to vomit the food they have eaten.
             A person with anorexia becomes obsessed about food and weight. Some people develop strange eating rituals and may refuse to eat in front of other people. Many people with anorexia seem to care a lot about food. They may collect cookbooks and prepare sumptuous meals for their friends and families -- but they don't join in. Often the refusal to eat is paired with strict exercise regimens.
             Like all eating disorders, it tends to occur in pre or post puberty, but can develop at any life change. Anorexia nervosa predominately affects adolescent girls, although it can also occur in men and older women. One reason younger women are particularly vulnerable to eating disorders is their tendency to go on strict diets to achieve an "ideal" figure. This obsessive dieting behavior reflects a great deal of today's societal pressure to be thin, which is seen in advertising and the media (Segall, 2001). Others especially at risk for eating disorders include athletes, actors, and models for which thinness has become a professional requirement.
             Knowledge about the causes of anorexia is inconcl...