Anorexia Nervosa Anorexia nervosa is an illness that usually occurs in teenage girls, like both of the articles I read, but it can also occur in boys. People with anorexia are obsessed with being thin. Anorexic people lose a lot of weight, and are also terrified of gaining any weight. Anorexia is not just a problem with food or weight, but it is also an attempt to use food and weight to deal with emotional problems. Sufferers have a distorted body image, and “see” themselves as fat, even when they are of normal weight, or even emaciated (extreme thinness). Anorexia is sometimes also known as the slimming disease.