Anorexia abuse
August 20, 2009 in Women's Health by Dr. Peter
Women’s health & fitness guide
A significant occurrence has been documented linking the onset of anorexia to a past history of both physical and mental abuse. A recent study showed that over 80% of clients with anorexia and related eating disorders that entered a programme at one clinic, had in one way or another suffered some form of abuse sometime in the life.
It is thought that maybe anorexics will develop the disease as a way of making themselves smaller perhaps even to shed there individual sexual characteristics, for example the sexually abused girl may try unconsciously to shed her breasts, hips and buttocks in the hope of losing her appeal. It is also thought that many anorexics who have suffered for perhaps a number of years from abuse and now have anorexia, its there way of trying to regain control of there body.
Having had what they feel all control taken from them at the hands of there abusers, they now try to regain this by strict control of what they eat and how they look. Many survivors of physical abuse who have developed eating disorders feel extreme discomfort with there body shape and how they look.
People who have grown up in a home surrounded by abuse often develop serious eating disorders such as anorexia and have a deep inbuilt fear of the way their body looks which probably stems back to the suffering they felt at the hands of there abuser.
Deep seated feelings of mistrust will link back to times when they were abused in the home environment by the very people they should have been able to trust completely. Feelings of low self esteem can have festered deep inside for many years following mental abuse, the anorexic will remember being told they are worthless and that feeling will have grown with them and remained lingering long after they have left the abusive situation they were in. For many they have gotten so used to being the victim of abuse that they can even carry on torturing themselves subconsciously by treating there bodies with little respect.
Another way abuse is thought to be linked to anorexia is that by depraving there body of food the sufferer is attempting to gain back the control they lost due to the hands of there abuser, the anorexic will strive to achieve what they see as perfection.
Perfection to the anorexic is never achieved as they will lose all sense of what is normal and ideal once the disease has taken hold of them. Physical and mental abuse is by no means the single cause of anorexia it is only thought to be one of the many causes that can bring on this terrible wasting disease.
