Anorexia is a loss of appetite and, as a result, a decrease in human body weight. Anorexia and its symptoms that manifest themselves in adolescence, as a rule, are already seen in the child in preschool childhood, or parents noted the difficulty of breastfeeding the newborn. Therefore, the causal relationship of this disease is not only of social origin, but also associated with the psychology of feeding the baby, with the attitude to his upbringing in the earliest periods of life.
Cause and effect are phenomena of the same order, which are interconnected in time. If the time intervals have a significant period, then parents and specialists will need to make an effort to analyze the relationship of anorexia and other types of eating behavior of the child and the specific conditions of education. If a child finds a protest for eating, parents turn to doctors: pediatricians, endocrinologists, neuropathologists, who, on the basis of symptoms, prescribe drugs to eliminate pathological manifestations, i.e. the effects of anorexia. Whereas in parallel one should turn to a psychologist, psychoanalyst or psychotherapist, for whom the causes of the disease, the causal relationship of anorexia and the conditions of education become the object of study.
In early childhood, the cause of anorexia can be the baby's improper diet, when the mother feeds him without taking into account individual characteristics, according to a schedule that is standardly set by doctors. Each parent should be aware that this schedule is for guidance only. If the child cries and asks to eat before the appointed time, it means that he has a need for it - perhaps because of the lack of milk eaten in the previous feeding or because of the special course of the metabolic process in the body. Forced feeding is another reason that results in resistance to feeding, refusal to eat, active spitting up and even vomiting. The causal relationship of feeding violence and resistance to it can manifest itself in adolescence as a protest against any violence by parents: their demands to be an excellent student, a good athlete or musician.
Psychologists have established a relationship between the symbolism of food and the symbolism of the mother, which were the first objects in the life of the child. Eating for a newborn is always associated with the presence of the mother, her breast and milk. Refusal of food in later periods of childhood - as a "refusal of the mother." The stronger the social pressure from the mother, the more pronounced anorexia in a teenager. The first manifestations of it are a refusal to share food, when adults impose food and control the process. Refusing food means giving up parental control.
A teenager can rationalize his behavior, pointing to causal relationships of social origin: the fashion of being thin, ridicule of group leaders over its fullness, imitation of idols. In fact, when brought up in a family where the power of the mother or father is despotic, the child is brought up in subjection to them, as well as to other, more powerful and significant figures. Therefore, when analyzing the reasons, one should discuss with him his sacrificial and subordinate position, the desire to please someone or resemble someone, but not to be himself. He can make a choice on his own - to remain subordinate or to assert himself in the team and in the family.
A causal relationship is an immersion in the distant past, a search for the cause of today's features of the course of the disease. The study of this connection can also take place in the opposite way, starting from the symptoms. So, strong weight loss even before puberty can slow down the development of the body, the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics in a teenager. Therefore, the reason can be sought in the desire of the child to regress in the early period of childhood, and not grow up - to remain "an eternal child" by manipulating his body, and not become an adult, responsible and independent.
A causal relationship in the appearance of anorexia in a child can be traced through the process of imitation of parents who themselves constantly follow diets and lose weight. An unconscious program for the destruction of the body can be a family program and begin to work from the moment of the first weight loss by the mother after childbirth. The greater the child’s dependence on the parents, the more likely that the desire to lose weight, eat less and have little weight becomes the child’s unconscious need.