Posts Tagged period

Eating Disorders in Adolescents

Since the adolescence is the age where bones are sprout and grow rapidly, well nourished food must be given to the adolescent to facilitate normal growth & development. The nutritional intake must be monitored regularly and modified depending upon the growing needs. Teenagers tend to develop eating disorders which affect their nutritional health. The eating behavior must be corrected as early as possible as it can lead to the development of complex illnesses. Eating disorder is the third common chronic illness, especially in adolescent females and the number has been increasing rapidly from the past thirty years.

There are two subcategories of eating disorders, anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa is the restrictive form, where the intake of food is limited severely. In bulimia nervosa is the eating disorder where the adolescent binges on food and then tries to minimize the effects by forcibly vomiting, fasting, and catharsis or over exercising. When handling adolescence eating disorders, they must be handled differently from adult eating disorders. Adolescents face problems such as growth retardation, suppressed height, abnormal weight, pubertal delay, menstrual periods absence, and menses unpredictability. When the adolescent is growing there will be critical tissue components loss like loss of body fat, muscle mass and bone mineral.

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Anemia in Adolescents

To understand what is anemia one should begin with breathing. The oxygen that is inhaled simply doesn’t stop in lungs. It circulates though out the body and fuels the brains also. Oxygen travels to all parts of the body though bloodstream and to be precise in the RBCs I.e. red blood cells. Now, these RBCs are produced in the bone marrow of the body and they serve as boats carrying oxygen in the bloodstream. RBCs have something called hemoglobin, a protein which holds oxygen. To make adequate hemoglobin body requires iron in plenty. The iron is supplied by the foods that we take along with other nutrients. When these RBCs are fewer in number than what is needed anemia occurs in the body. There can be 3 primary reasons: RBCs are lost due to some reason, the production of RBCs is slower than what is needed and lastly the body is destroying the RBCs. Different types of anemia are linked to at least one of these causes.

The bone marrow replaces small amounts of blood is lost due to some reason without making a person anemic. But in cases where considerable amount of blood flows in small amount of time as a result of an injury due to a serious example for instance, it may not be possible for bone marrow to replace RBCs so quickly resulting in anemia. Also, losing small amounts of blood over long periods of time may also lead to anemia. Example of this situation can be seen in girls who get heavy periods attributed mainly to deficiency of iron in the diet.

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Menstrual Disorders in Adolescent Girls

Adolescence is the time when there is sudden transformation in the body and many questions arises in the minds of the adolescents. Firstly they are not able to cope with the changes and secondly the changes bring along problems with them. The most challenging problems are related to menses, in girls. Menstrual conditions are many that may require physician’s attention or any other healthcare professional’s attention. The most common of the menstrual disorders are premenstrual syndrome, dysmenorrheal and amenorrhea.

Before the onset of the menses, females face many uncomfortable symptoms which last for a short period, stretching from few hours to few days. But some of them can be very intense and can disturb the normal functioning of the person. These symptoms are grouped as premenstrual syndrome. In usual cases, the symptoms come to a halt when the menses begin, but for some they may last even after the menstrual periods are over. Eighty five percent of the females experience some of the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome at one time or the other. Nearly forty percent experience the symptoms so intensely that their daily chores are affected by it and ten percent are disabled by it.

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