Each year in the United States millions of Americans are diagnosed with an eating disorder. The vast majority of these afflicted with eating disorders are females. Many factors contribute to eating disorders including pressure from television, magazines, and athletes, feelings of low self-esteem and powerlessness. Eating disorders are more than abnormal eating habits they are also psychological problems. (Siegal 8).
             There are two main types of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, and bulimia, (McCarthy 52). Anorexia nervosa is self-starvation -- an obsession with thinness. It is a potentially life-threatening disorder that leads a person to refuse to eat enough to maintain a normal body weight. Bulimia is characterized bybinge eating followed by purging. Purging leads to many long-term heath effects.
             Many different factors cause eating disorders. They are a serious signal that something is wrong psychologically. If an eating disorder goes unnoticed or untreated, it can lead to health problems ranging from skin irritation and deterioration, hair loss, to even more serious problems such as stunted growth, thinning bones, damage to teeth and internal organs, infertility and even death.
             Eating disorders kill up to ten percent of their victims (Siegal 22). Starvation, cardiac arrest, and suicide account for most eating related deaths. As anorexics starves himself or herself, the body tries to protect its vital organs; the heart and brain. The body is so hungry that it starts to eat itself.
             Anorexia usually affects adolescent females, although males can also suffer from the disease. Most anorexics are looking to please someone else by losing weight. By starving themselves, anorexics gain a false sense of power. Some warning signs of anorexia include the loss of more than twenty-five percent of one's body weight, a distorted self-image, and an obsession with food yet a refusal to eat. If not treated, menstr...