<p>Fitting in is something that many strive for in today’s society. In order to do this, more or less all of us use impression management. The illness Anorexia contradicts the norms of society since eating is a fundamental need, and to refrain from this is therefore a major discrepancy. It is the impression management among anorectics we have chosen to put our emphasis on in this survey in which about ten people have been interviewed with a qualitative method. Three of these are former anorectics while the rest comes in contact with anorectic people through their profession in one way or another.</p><p>We can state that anorectics prove to behave self-deceitfully. To start with, the ill person lacks insight of his/her problems and denial is not uncommon. When at last realised, the illness is often so well rooted in the identity that the ill is afraid of losing it. Due to this, he/she feels forced to hide the disease at any price. From our interviews we can see how some respondents, among other things, hid food, worked out on the sly and used laxatives.</p>

Fitting in is something that many strive for in today’s society. In order to do this, more or less all of us use impression management. The illness Anorexia contradicts the norms of society since eating is a fundamental need, and to refrain from this is therefore a major discrepancy. It is the impression management among anorectics we have chosen to put our emphasis on in this survey in which about ten people have been interviewed with a qualitative method. Three of these are former anorectics while the rest comes in contact with anorectic people through their profession in one way or another. We can state that anorectics prove to behave self-deceitfully. To start with, the ill person lacks insight of his/her problems and denial is not uncommon. When at last realised, the illness is often so well rooted in the identity that the ill is afraid of losing it. Due to this, he/she feels forced to hide the disease at any price. From our interviews we can see how some respondents, among other things, hid food, worked out on the sly and used laxatives.