According to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM III, 1987R), anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by strong fears of becoming overweight, disturbance of body image (anorexics persistently see themselves as "fat" despite even skeletal gauntness caused by starvation), refusal to maintain a minimally normal body weight, and amenorrhea in females.
While anorexia nervosa affects thousands of people every year, over 95 percent of these are females between 14 and 18 years of age, a substantial portion of whom are middle and upper middle-class whites (Andersen, 1983). The morbidity and mortality rates of eating disorder patients in general are the highest of all the psychiatric disturbances.
In their discussion of morbidity and mortality in anoretic patients in particular, Brotman, Rigotti and Herzog (1985) noted that follow-up studies of these patients indicated that about 22 percent die of the disorder; moreover the authors stated that the average mortality rate computed over the last two decades is around 6 percent.
Unfortunately, the victims of the disorder are young and unaware of the devastating physiological effects of anorexia nervosa. According to Brotman et. al. (1985), these include cardiac and hematologic abnormalities, gastrointestinal and respiratory problems, renal and electrolyte complications, neurologic and endocrine difficulties, and skeletal abnormalities.
Clarke-Stewart, Friedman and Koch (1985) have reported that young girls suffering from anorexia nervosa can lose 25 percent or more of their body weight within a few months, usually by denying their body both nutrition and result. Many girls start out with a diet because they are, in fact, slightly overweight, but very soon their dieting behavior becomes obsessive and often it is combined with an expenditure of huge amounts of energy in physical exercise.
The anoretic pat...