ABSTRACT
With regard to family size divergent opinions may be found in the older literature, and recent studies show similarly contrasting findings: Herzog (1982) reported a greater number of only children among normal-weight bulimic girls than among anorexics, whereas Bonenberger and Klosinski (1988) found that 12.6% of their anorexic sample were only children compared to 47.3% in the general population (of the Federal Republic of Germany). Many other comparative studies, however, did not reveal any significant difference in family size: Dolan, Evans, and Lacey (1989), who compared bulimics with non-eatingdisordered women; A. Hall (1978), who compared anorexics with data from the general population (in New Zealand); Igoin-Apfelbaum (1985), who compared bulimic with overweight but non-bulimic girls; Johnson, C. Lewis, Love, L. Lewis, and Stuckey (1984), who investigated bulimic and non-bulimic girls in a large high school population; and Weiss and Ebert (1983), who studied normal-weight bulimics and matched normal females.
