you want to skip your food? you want to be anorexic?

Ellen Says: Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight, and an obsessive fear of gaining weight due to a distorted self image which may be maintained by various cognitive biases that alter how the affected individual evaluates and thinks about their body, food and eating.

It is a serious mental illness with a high incidence of comorbidity and also the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder.

While the stereotype is that AN affects young white women, it can affect men and women of all ages, races, socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.

The term anorexia nervosa was established in 1873 by Sir William Gull, one of Queen Victoria's personal physicians.

The term is of Greek origin: a (α, prefix of negation), n (ν, link between two vowels) and orexis, thus meaning a lack of desire to eat.

Anorexia and the associated malnutrition that results from self-imposed starvation, can cause severe complications in every major organ system in the body.