From “Severe Growing-Up Phobia,” a paper that was coauthored by Laurencia Perales Blum and published in Case Reports in Psychiatry, in 2014. The paper discusses a Mexican boy who suffered from gerascophobia, a fear of aging.

The patient is a fourteen-year-old adolescent whose problem started two and a half years ago because of an excessive fear of growing. He does not eat much because food contains nutrients needed for physical development. Due to the restriction in food intake, he has a weight loss of more than twelve kilograms. He adopted a stooped posture to hide his height and began…