Slimming Pill Addiction Hits Teenagers
With slimming pills gaining popularity among teeny-boppers, a new form of addiction seems to be catching on along with health problems like bulimia and anorexia. Several figure-conscious teenagers are being treated for this addiction at the Vidyasagar Institure for Mental Health and Neurosciences (VIMHANS). A large number of school and college students have already been brought for treatment at the institute’s out-patient department. Aiming to achieve model-like hour-glass figures, the children consume up to four slimming pills a day. Two girls have to be hospitalized due to an overdose of these slimming pills. Dr. Jitendra Nagpal, head of the psychiatry department, said that these teenagers suffer from problems like fluctuation in blood pressure, severe headache, dizziness, blurred vision and rapid loss in body weight which can prove fatal. He said that the institute had recently treated an 18-years-old college student, who was taking four pills daily. “She had lost 10 kilo grams in one month. But still she was not satisfied and wanted to lose more weight. Her worried parents brought her to the hospital. During the counseling sessions, we realized that she had become dependent on these pills,” he added.
The addiction to slimming pill, he said, was not physical but psychological. “These teenagers will not show withdrawal symptoms if they don’t take the pills. But psychologically, the fell that should keep eating the pills and lose more weight,” said Dr. Nagpal. Made from chemical compounds, fenfluramine and dexfiuramine the pills kill hunger signals emanating from hunger centers in the brain. The person loses his appetite which leads to the loss of weight. However, an excess dosage of the slimming pills can prove disastrous. Carolina (not her real name), an 18-year-old college student, is being treated at VIMHANS. She said that her friend introduced her to the slimming pills as the easiest way to get slim. Her parents became curious when they saw their daughter eating some pills every day.
When they inquired, Carolina said that these were multi-vitamin pills. But her continuous loss of weight and headaches made her parents suspicious. They decided to take her to the hospital. A terrified Carolina told the doctors that she had lost control over her body and could not resist taking slimming pills. She is now attending regular counseling sessions
The other evils of this new slimming fad are bulimia and anorexia. Doctors say that there has been a sudden rise in such cases. The age group of the patients again is 14-21 years. In bulimia, a person, who cannot resist food willfully, induces vomiting after a meal. Anorexia symptoms are just the opposite, in which a person simply loses his appetite due to the fear that he is extremely fat.
Dr. Nagpal states that anorexia and bulimia nervosa are accompanied by problems like anxiety, mental depression, loss of control over the body and even schizophrenia.