Your daughter began to lose weight. It doesn’t come out for dinner, at dinner he eats somehow. What happens: normal growing up and attention to its appearance or the beginning of the development of a dangerous disease?
Our expert – Clinical psychologist Margarita Alekseeva.
Not a whim, but a disease
To begin with, you need to talk with a teenager: to find out whether it hurts to reduce to a doctor, to undergo an examination – weight loss without a cause and aversion to food can be associated with a lot of dangerous diseases. When all the possible causes of excessive thinness are rejected, you can think about whether the child has a disorder of food behavior (RPP).
Diseases of this group are serious pathologies, although they are called disorders. They can lead to dangerous, sometimes irreversible and even fatal consequences. Therefore, the sooner to start treatment, the more chances for a stable remission.
It is alarming
Carefully observe the child and pay attention to certain symptoms.
- Weight loss or lack of its weight gain over the past 6 months.
- Changing the usual eating behavior. More often it is a reduction in portions, a categorical refusal of high -calorie products.
- Dissatisfaction and concern with its weight, forms of body. Constant criticism of oneself, and in an offensive form. As well as regular weighing, measurements and constant fear to gain weight.
- Inadequate perception of your body. It seems to the teenager that he has a large stomach, thick legs, even if there are no objectively flaws in the figure.
- Attacks of uncontrolled overeating, for which the teenager later can be very ashamed. As well as “cleansing” after eating – artificially caused vomiting, intake of laxative and/or diuretic. There are also external signs that a person regularly causes vomiting: problems with dental enamel, swollen parotid glands, traces of teeth on the back of the hands, edema. At the same time, a teenager may have the usual weight.
- Excessive workouts – “working” of food in the gym.
Atypical signs
Teenagers suffering from anorexia or other RPPs very skillfully hide it. Often parents learn about the disease too late.
So it is worth paying attention not only to direct, but also to indirect signs of such disorders.
- The absence of menarge (first menstruation) in girls or their cessation. On average, menstruation in girls begin at 12-13 years old.
- Food alone.
- Division of food into harmful and useful. Scrupulous study of the composition of products, calorie content. Preparation of dishes for yourself separately.
- Narrowing of the circle of interests and social isolation. All conversations are reduced to the topic of weight, interest in publications about diets and weight loss is growing. The teenager does not want to leave home and meet with friends.
- Mood swings, constant lethargy, apathy, poor performance.
All of the listed signs should not be present. But if parents have doubts, it is better to contact specialists. Not only to a nutritionist, but also to a clinical psychologist who specializes in the RPP, and then to the psychiatrist.
Source: aif.ru