ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a comprehensive and accessible account of eating disorders. The term ‘eating disorders’ refers to a broad group of disorders, which includes anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, obesity, binge eating, extreme dieting, fasting-bingeing cycles and other forms of subclinical anorexia and bulimia nervosa. By ‘eating disorders’ I will, however, mainly intend anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (I will often use ‘anorexia’ and ‘bulimia’ to refer to ‘anorexia nervosa’ and ‘bulimia nervosa’), which are those eating orders mainly considered in the clinical literature.1 I shall, however, also discuss briefly what these other eating disorders, such as binge eating, are. The points raised on anorexia and bulimia nervosa can help with a more general understanding of other (sometimes less extreme) forms of disordered eating.
