The weight of perfection: A case report of anorexia nervosa from a rural area of Odisha

Abstract: Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by significantly low weight based on developmental trajectory and height. Individuals with this disorder exhibit a persistent and relentless drive for thinness, leading to behaviors that cause weight loss or prevent weight gain and are often accompanied by a distorted body self-perception. It is clinically diagnosed more frequently in females, with type, and severity varying with each case.The current report is a case of a 16-year-old female, unmarried, educated up to 10 th standard, hailing from a lower middle social class Hindu family from the rural area of Barbil, Keonjhar, Odisha. She presented to our tertiary care center with complaints of gradual loss of weight, recurrent episodes of vomiting for a period of 1.5 years, amenorrhea for 8 months, with a probable precipitating factor being critical comment of schoolmates on her weight. Diagnosis of atypical anorexia nervosa was made, with the body mass index being 14.4. A multidisciplinary therapeutic approach was employed to facilitate remission. Through this case report, the authors call for the attention of general practitioners and other medical practitioners to be aware of the symptomatology of eating disorders as most patients would overtly express somatic conditions similar to the reported case so as to facilitate early psychiatric intervention.