Eating Disorders Anatomy of a Social Epidemic

In an extensively revised new edition of the successful Anorexia and Bulimia, Richard Gordon includes new information and discussion of the latest ideas in this rapidly growing research field. There is extensive discussion of the clinical aspects of disorders, in particular their relationship to obsessive–compulsive disorder, plus data of recovery and mortality. It also provides accounts of the latest research on the epidemiological status of eating disorders and the subsequent debate that this work has engendered. Further new features include the analysis of the role of sexual abuse in eating disorders, the relationship of obesity to anorexia and bulimia, and consideration of the recent debates surrounding the politics of eating disorders.

The past two decades have witnessed an enormous increase in the number of cases of eating disorders in industrial societies. Richard Gordon brings together historical and cultural perspectives, as well as his own clinical experience, in order to examine the sociocultural roots of this apparent epidemic. The high incidence of these once rare conditions in contemporary societies can be traced to a number of interrelated factors: the changing role of women, the increasingly difficult transition from adolescence to adulthood, the social importance attached to physical beauty which focuses on thin body shape, a general pursuit of health and fitness and, ironically, the glamorization of anorexia in the mass media which has made its symptoms fashionable.