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Anorexia is a mental illness where patients use various techniques to lose weight, while dieting is a change in eating habits. Anorexics may use dieting, excessive exercise, laxatives, or vomiting to lose weight. A healthy diet can be beneficial, but those concerned about someone’s weight loss should look for signs of an eating disorder.
The difference between diet and anorexia is that diet is a change in eating habits while anorexia is a mental illness. People with anorexia often have a distorted body image and take various steps, including diet, to reduce their body weight to an unhealthy level. While dieting, particularly crash dieting, is one way for anorexics to reduce their body weight, the two conditions don’t have to go hand in hand.
Anorexia nervosa is a serious mental illness in which patients use a variety of techniques to lose weight, even beyond the point of being healthy or even meeting normal standards of attractiveness. People with anorexia live in a state of semi- or true starvation, which can cause significant damage to their bodily systems. In some cases, anorexia nervosa can lead to fatal health conditions, including liver and heart failure.
Some anorexics may choose to lose weight solely through diet. In such cases, the connection between diet and anorexia is clear, as an individual tries to lose weight by restricting what he eats. In many cases, the anorexic chooses a low-calorie diet that can restrict calories to as little as 600 to 800 calories per day. In some extreme cases, the anorexic can further reduce her caloric intake.
Dieting is not always the means by which an anorexic loses weight. Some anorexics exercise excessively, use laxatives, or force themselves to vomit to lose weight. In such cases, the connection between diet and anorexia is not so clear. In fact, the anorexic may diet to reduce calories, but may rely more on other tools and techniques to achieve the desired severe weight loss.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that the diet is healthy. People who are concerned about their eating habits or want to lose weight can opt for a sensible and nutritionally complete diet to help them achieve their weight loss goals. As long as a person’s diet allows for safe and slow weight loss and provides the dieter with adequate nutrition, such a diet can be healthy and beneficial. Those who are concerned with determining the difference between diet and anorexia in someone they care about should pay attention to how that person eats and how much weight they lose.
In cases where an individual appears to be trying to lose weight even when they don’t need to or their weight loss efforts appear out of proportion to their actual body size, the observer may look for other symptoms of an eating disorder. If the individual is losing a significant amount of weight very quickly or is showing signs of malnutrition, which may include pale skin, dark circles under the eyes, and hair loss, the friend or observer can take steps to help that person.
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