Aparna*, a 14-year-old was accompanied by her guardians to our organization saying she wasn’t eating well, exercising a lot, and not feeling hungry at all times. She seemed to be having these symptoms for over five months impacting her physical and mental health in terms of mood swings, crankiness, irregular menstrual cycles, and hair loss. 

In our interactions with our psychologist, she revealed that her insecurity and obsessive thoughts about her weight were heavily influenced by her peers due to bullying and other events at school. This also impacted her interpersonal relationships in terms of her family and friends further negatively impacting her mental health. Something that started as an initial fitness routine in a healthy way turned into skipping meals and obsessing over weight loss. 

Our psychologist helped Aparna* and her guardians understand that she was suffering from an eating disorder called Anorexia Nervosa. They were also recommended to consult a dietician to monitor and track her physical health and overall eating. Apart from this, Aparna* came once a week to the clinic where she worked on her relationship with food and her weight with the help of therapy techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness-based techniques. During one of the sessions, the psychologist noticed that Aparna’s* self-image was low. Therefore, strategies were put in place to help her build and improve her self-image and work on building interpersonal relationships. As the sessions progressed, a significant amount of change and improvement was seen in Aparna* where she could eat better and had an improved sense of self and her interpersonal relationships. 

(*name changed for anonymity)