Expert: Nafeesah - 2/22/2009

Question
My girlfriend is a very health conscious person.  She is a pre-nursing
stundent with a minor in nutrition.  Ever since she began taking a lot of
nutrition classes she has been cutting a lot of things out of her diet.  It started
with fried foods but now it seems the is nothing she will eat.  No food with
sugar, go butter, no hydragenated oils,no whipping cream...etc the list could
go on and on.  I am not against eating healthy by no means but I dont know
when it actually becomes unhealthy. She is 21, 5'3", but less than 97 pounds.
She quit saying how much she weighs because she said I just would bother
her more about it. She says she is hungry but nothing sounds good.  If I were
to guess she probably gets between 300-500 calories a day at most.  When
we tell her she needs to eat more, she gets mad and says she gets full when
she eats, or I eat plenty.  What she doesn't say is the stuff she eats like
celery and some of a plain bake potato for dinner has minimal calories in it.
Her ribs seem to stick out more and more eveyday.  My main question: is this
an eating disorder? What should I do about it?  Does it sound very serious?

Answer
She is underweight for her age and if you go online and Google what's the correct weight for someone 21 at 5'3" and if it's more than 97 pounds your girlfriend is starving herself and could be anorexic. I can't diagnose the problem because I am not a doctor, but this is serious she's seriously underweight and this is not healthy.