There was a "thing" in Japan a few years back, the "silent baby" syndrome.
These babies were happy to sit in a car seat, and starve to death. I
remember that they were normal at birth, but were basically ignored until
they quit wanting any attention or feeds. They slowly starved to death, but
were happy to do so. Never cried for feeds, never cried to be picked up.
They were just silent. 

When a body goes through starvation, whether induced by body image issues or
lack of food in nature, the ions change. Your whole body reacts to the lack
of food, and eventually you quit feeling the hunger. If you continually felt
the hunger, it would be a terrible fight to not eat. Anorexia is defined as
loss of appetite - doesn't matter why.

My personal contact with AN is just not hungry. We will sit down for dinner,
and eat 1/4 of what I eat, and claim to be stuffed. I'm 5'4", 135#, she's
5'8", 105# (and still losing weight). She claims to not have a body image,
she's "just not hungry."

Possibly it starts out as a psychiatric disorder, and develops into a
metabolic disorder as the body compensates for the lack of food. 

Best wishes,
Sam Doak


<<
This thing of appetite center being turned off by weight loss below a
critical level, was the reason they decided to stop viewing anorexia as a
mental illness, and start treating it as a somatic one.  They cited studies
done on normal weight adults who voluntarily participated in a starvation
experiment.  These adults developed the mental features of anorexia nervosa
when they were starved enough.

It's a bit of a stretch to assume that the exact same thing is happening in
a newborn, but who of us hasn't seen the baby who appears content to
starve?>>

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