ABSTRACT
Every day there is something else in the news about eating disorders. In 1997 when, before her untimely death, the Princess of Wales publicly admitted to having anorexia and bulimia and stated that she had attempted suicide, she made these painful and at times disgusting illnesses almost glamorous. In June of the same year we heard, as had been stated in the past, that there is an organic reason for this illness, this time that reduced blood flow between the temporal lobes of the brain triggers the symptoms. Later that year Dr Dee Dawson, who runs an eating disorder clinic in London, told the Girls School Association that they should regularly weigh pupils to catch them when they start losing weight as 2 per cent of their pupils were likely to have an eating disorder, rising to 5 per cent in the sixth form. Eating disorders can be headline news and their aetiology is the subject of much debate and controversy.
