ABSTRACT
The assessment of a young person with an eating disorder is a complex exercise which needs to address a number of issues. Firstly, the diagnosis should be made; this should be done by eliciting the characteristic symptoms and behaviours, rather than by exclusion. Investigations should be carried out where required, but the purpose of these in the main is to assess physical complications of the disorder, rather than to make or exclude other diagnoses. For the purposes of this chapter, we will assume that the young person has already received a diagnostic assessment and that the requirement for physical evaluation will have been addressed elsewhere.
