ABSTRACT
Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) is a category in the classification of mental disorders in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA 1994). It is the category to which eating disorders are assigned if they fail to fulfil diagnostic criteria for one of the major eating disorders, Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN). On the face of it, this would seem to be an unpromising, even an eccentric topic for a whole book. Surely, it is an esoteric subject. Indeed, something like that was the first reaction of publishers when we proposed this book. However, the reactions of many of our colleagues – clinicians and researchers in the field of the eating disorders – were quite different. They recognized both the importance of the subject and its relative neglect hitherto. But why is a minor category in the classification of the eating disorders worthy of such interest and attention?
