Young girls who develop anorexia were at one time very friendly, easy going and non confrontational, for the most part they are not very outgoing outside of their immediate family. The third stage of anorexia which is called the assertive stage begins when people start to criticize the young girl for becoming too thin. The criticism is ignored and now people are telling the girl to stop losing weight and start gaining. The anorexic just realizes that people are just jealous and they will not be satisfied, everyone around her is just jealous because they can't lose as much weight.

Conflict doesn't bother the girl anymore as she becomes accustomed to it. After a while she becomes empowered in defense of her anorexic behavior. This one area in her life is very important to her and makes her feel good about herself along with her actions. The young girl confirms that she has reached the third stage when she starts to request special demands of her family for her to eat. For instance, when going out to eat with the family the young girl may not be satisfied with the menu because there is no perfect fat free meal. She will request to go from one restaurant to the other looking for that perfect meal. When at home when someone is cooking, she will monitor their cooking to make sure that they will not add any extra calories to the meal. While others see her as too thin she will believe otherwise thinking she is fine, she should decide how much she should weigh.