ABSTRACT
Studies of anorexia nervosa in the male indicate that the psychosocial and clinical characteristics are essentially indistinguishable from the female (Crisp & Burns, 1983; Hsu, 1980). This finding would be unremarkable, indeed expected, in many disorders. That anorexia nervosa is predominantly a female disorder, thought at times to be exclusively so (Cobb, 1943; Nemiah, 1950; Selvini, 1965), has given rise to a body of theory about its aetiology which, in varying degrees, stresses the central significance of conflicts surrounding femininity and feminine appearance.
