Ludhiana, February 4
If your teenaged daughter is not eating well, skipping meals, is over exercising and is imitating various models to look as slim as them then you better watch out. For she can be suffering from ‘Obsessive preoccupation with the body weight’, a psychological disorder that can lead to anorexia nervosa which if not detected in time can lead to various diseases like malnutrition, low metabolism affecting physical and mental growth, low resistance to diseases, lack of interest and irritability which may even prove fatal in certain cases.
The disorder, commonly known as ‘Obsessive preoccupation with the body weight,” is already affecting girls in the city and is becoming a cause of concern for the parents as well as the dieticians. The disorder mainly affects adolescent girls who want to wear skimpy dresses in order to look like models who are being popularised by the media and the innumerable fashion shows that are being frequently organised in the city.
Many parents confided that they were worried about their daughters who were laying over emphasis on looking very slim and were not realising the worth of good and balanced diet. Many girls were said to be over-exercising and using laxatives to lose weight and even threw up after binging on food.
A worried mother said her 19-year-old daughter had suddenly started getting very conscious about her weight. However, it did not worry the mother as she felt that a controlled weight was the key to keeping good health. But suddenly the idea of losing weight became an obsession with the girl and she started making excuses for skipping meals or eating very less. She started exercising vigorously too. She lost weight no doubt, but become irritable and suffered from lack of motivation. She lost interest in studies and also failed in her exams, which made panic stricken parents contact a doctor. For these girls counselling and correct diet is the answer.
The parents often do not think that their child needs counselling. “When you feel that your daughter is becoming obsessed with losing weight then don’t delay, take her to a psychotherapist and a dietician at once. Otherwise the situation can lead to serious trouble,” warns Dr Enid Habil a dietician at Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH).
She said the problem was becoming serious as most of the girls wanted to look like twiggy and Brittany Spears. Actually the girls in the West are tall and less curvaceous whereas in India, the girls are shorter and more curvaceous and hence all Indian girls can’t get figures like girls of West. The major role of forcing these girls to become obsessed with becoming thin like sticks was being played by the garment designers who were designing clothes to fit only the so called “anorexic” females. The girls actually wanted to look slim and fit in those dresses. One can observe similar trends in the market. The clothes are for very slim and small built, plump girls hardly find anything off the shelf to fit them.
“If we make a random survey in the colleges of the city more than 60 per cent of the girls would be found to be anorexic,” says Dr Habil adding that the disorder earlier used to affect only western girls but it has entered in our country as well.
“Balanced diet is a must. And if the girls don’t believe in this they should remember that they can suffer from anything including depressions, malnutrition, menstrual
disturbances, lack of concentration and even organ system failure.” said the doctor.
The psychiatrists at CMC, Dr Amardeep Singh Kohli and Dr Arun Sood said the reason behind the disorder was a distorted self image. They said these girls tend to induce vomiting after eating, wiping off the excessive oil in food with a tissue and lose more than 20 per cent of the body weight even then they would feel energetic and not fatigued.
“That’s what the disorder is. They cannot understand that something is wrong with them. The right approach is to identify such a problem and the underlying causes and then send both the parents as well as the patient for counselling. The pathological as well as medical treatment is then required to cure the patient fully.” says Dr Sood.
