It is an eating disorder much less known than anorexia nervosa, bulimia or binge eating disorder but with identical and dire health consequences. Megarexia represents the opposite side of anorexia: people who suffer from it see themselves healthy and thin when in fact they are obese .
Their distortion of the body scheme, so common in eating disorders, leads them to feel satisfied and proud of their physique (they think that excess weight is synonymous with strength and vitality), so they do not follow any type of diet , do not exercise and tend to lead unhealthy lifestyles, including eating a large amount of foods with “empty calories” (industrial pastries, chips, sweets, sweets, pre-cooked food …) every day of the week, which leads, over time to a serious and worrying vitamin or mineral deficiency. At the very least it can lead to anemia, but it can also cause death.
The deficit of nutrients causes an alteration in the biochemistry of the brain (as in anorexia), so that megarexics are not aware that they suffer from a disease. In addition, considering that obesity is a growing disease today, it is possible that there are many overweight individuals who are undiagnosed megarexics who end up becoming obese.
