ANOREXIA, BULIMIA. Anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) are three of a spectrum of conditions, commonly known as eating disorders, associated with abnormal eating patterns and a desire to be thin. The abnormal eating patterns in these eating disorders include restriction of food intake, binge eating, and purging with laxatives or by self-induced vomiting. Persons with each of these disorders may go through periods of restriction, binge eating with purging, and binge eating without purging.

The term "eating disorders" for these conditions is both correct and misleading. These disorders center around issues of eating, or, to be more exact, food consumption, and certainly can be qualified as disorders, but more than eating is disordered in these conditions: they are associated with a complex of psychological, physiological, neurological, and hormonal changes, which...