1. A general lack or loss of appetite for food; especially, when caused by a disease: Doctors are concerned because too often anorexia is a serious medical condition in which the patient chooses to abstain from food or consumes a minimum of calories that too often result in hospitalization or premature death.

Apparently, anorexia affects girls or young women more often than males.

2. No appetite; also, a shortened term for "anorexia nervosa": Emily's cousin, who is a pediatrician, specializes in therapy for anorexia and works with young women who are unable to overcome their anxieties about food.

An eating disorder that is characterized by a false perception of one's body appearance: Anorexia nervosa leads to an intense fear of gaining weight, or being overweight, and includes the refusal to maintain an acceptable body weight.

Voluntary starvation and excessive exercising by some of those who have anorexia nervosas cause some victims to become emaciated or abnormally thin.