Why?

[MWB]

When people are starving in a famine or the like, they get a swollen stomach.
Why don't anorexics?

[MrBen5]

Hmmm, i think its only in the middle east where that happens. People from different parts of the world have different bodies.
Thats like asking why are swedish girls always better looking than french girls...

[Shadow Man]

I think maybe you are getting "starvation" and "malnutrition" mixed up.

Many of these african children are not in fact staving as such, just malnourished. This will cause excess gas in the stomach hence, their little pot bellies.

Although world-hunger kills millions each year, abouu 90 percent of these cases are malnutrition as opposed to hunger. It is just more impacting to say "starving children".

[Octavius]

Acute malnutrition. Not always caused by lack of food, malnutrition can also be the result of an unbalanced diet and/or disease.

There are two types of acute malnutrition. A swollen stomach is indicative of kwashiorkor, malnutrition caused by protein deficiency. It often affects children when they are no longer fed milk and their new diet is lacking in protein. The protein deficiency causes fluids to drain from the blood into the stomach, causing the characteristic swelling (edema) which may also be present in the arms, legs, hands, feet, and faces. A lingering disease, these children tend to be lethargic. Although kwashiorkor may not kill, permanent injury is not uncommon�such as mental retardation.

A general lack of calories causes the other type of malnutrition, marasmus. Children with marasmus are extremely emaciated after having lost muscle and fat tissue. Their skin may be in folds and their faces very wrinkled from the extreme weight loss. These children have poor appetites and are often irritable.

Children may also exhibit both forms of acute malnutrition, marasmus and kwashiorkor, simultaneously.

Anorexia Nervosa (self-starvation), Bulimia Nervosa (binge/purge disorder) and Binge Eating Disorder are slightly different in that although malnutrition can occur, some necessary proteins are often present � albeit temporarily � sufficiently enough to prevent acute malnutrition. When someone with anorexia or bulimia gets to the point of Crisis Stage with terminal starvation signs, then edema will occur, and in all likelihood death.

[Ethel]

It is called kwashiorkor and can happen to anybody of any race if they are severly malnutritioned and do not have enough protein and other key nutritients., especially as babies and very young children.