Mental Health Basics

Eating is controlled by many factors, including appetite, food
availability, family, peer, and cultural practices, and attempts at
voluntary control. Eating disorders involve serious disturbances in
eating behavior, such as extreme and unhealthy reduction of food intake
or severe overeating, as well as feelings of distress or extreme concern
about body shape or weight.

Researchers are investigating how and why initially voluntary behaviors,
such as eating smaller or larger amounts of food than usual, at some
point move beyond control in some people and develop into an eating
disorder. Studies on the basic biology of appetite control and its
alteration by prolonged overeating or starvation have uncovered enormous
complexity, but in the long run have the potential to lead to new
pharmacologic treatments for eating disorders.

Eating disorders are not due to a failure of will or behavior; rather,
they are real, treatable medical illnesses in which certain maladaptive
patterns of eating take on a life of their own. The main types of eating
disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. A third type,
binge-eating disorder, has been suggested but has not yet been approved
as a formal psychiatric diagnosis. Eating disorders frequently develop
during adolescence or early adulthood, but some reports indicate their
onset can occur during childhood or later in adulthood.

Eating disorders frequently co-occur with other psychiatric disorders
such as depression, substance abuse, and anxiety disorders. In addition,
people who suffer from eating disorders can experience a wide range of
physical health complications, including serious heart conditions and
kidney failure which may lead to death. Recognition of eating disorders
as real and treatable diseases, therefore, is critically important.

Females are much more likely than males to develop an eating disorder.
Only an estimated 5 to 15 percent of people with anorexia or bulimia and
an estimated 35 percent of those with binge-eating disorder are male.