ABSTRACT
The feeding of the new born baby, of the growing infant and young toddler has been an important preoccupation for all mothers and fathers. It is impossible to bring children into the world and to be unconcerned about their state of nutrition. This chapter focuses on the occurrence of severe withdrawal in children, mostly girls, who heretofore have been socially and academically successful. Anorexia nervosa has been well known in medical circles for one hundred years. It has been described, occasionally, by doctors in Britain, France and Japan as early as the 18th century. Scholars have suggested that some of the ecstatic religious states of starvation and the practice of religious asceticism may have been, occasionally, associated with anorexia nervosa. In the clinical picture that has been built up so far it has been emphasised that the anorexic child becomes withdrawn as the eating disorder takes over her life.
