Anorexia: A Silent Killer

LAND O' LAKES, FL — Fifty-two minutes: the time it takes to finish an episode of the current show you're watching, for your dryer to complete its cycle, to grocery shop, one period of high school. Every 52 minutes is also when anorexia takes another life from our society. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa Association, Anorexia continues to have the highest case mortality rate with 10,200 deaths every year. But what makes this eating disorder deadly?

It can take a huge toll on both the human brain and body. By starving out bodily systems, the body begins lack nutrients which leads to “organ damage, brain shrinkage, issues with the nervous, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems”, according to the Bulimia Project.

Because of anorexia causing malnutrition, it can cause the organs to stop functioning because they no longer have what they need to support themselves leading to too much stain on the body. ⅓ of anorexic deaths are also caused by cardiac complications in which the starvation of the body starves the heart’s walls, leading them to weaken and thin. Because of the high frailty, cardiovascular complications easily arise, leading to sudden deaths.

Nutrient deprivation also causes dehydration. This leads to the body’s electrolytes to become imbalanced and this leads to someone to undergo multiple seizures, which in some cases lead unfortunately to sudden death.

The mental health effects associated with anorexia like depression and suicide are significant causes to its death tool as well. According to ANAD, people that currently have anorexia are eighteen times more likely to die from suicide than the general population and eleven times more likely to attempt. Even with only certain symptoms of anorexia, people are still twice as likely to commit suicide.

Even if help is sought, in some cases with people who had a BMI of 8 or less still face odds of death due to refeeding or other complications of the eating disorder. By letting the anorexia persist, the more fatal it becomes and if society educates themselves on this disorder that threshold wouldn’t be reached.

If we teach ourselves how to recognize the signs and intervention with it early, it’s possible to get help and get better. This is the call to action and we can make every fifty two minutes something proactive rather than a count down to another life taken due to this plague of a mental illness.