ABSTRACT
At the 1988 International Conference on Eating Disorders of the N ationa! Anorexic Aid Society, Dr. Christopher Fairburn delivered a keynote address on the epidemiology of eating disorders (Fairburn, 1988). Essentially, Fairburn criticized psychologists and psychiatrists for rushing to conduct epidemiological research (e.g., prevalence surveys) without taking the time and effort to master a number of basic principles of theory and methodology in the field of epidemiology. The deeper message was the need for eating disorders specialists to make a "developmental transition" from the first blush of defming and calling attention to an important set of psychopathologies toward a long-term commitment to painstaking research on causal models, effective treatments, and successful prevention.
