Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is a major eating disorder. It mainly affects women and teenage girls, but also can also affect men and women of all ages.

Anorexia nervosa is often confused with bulimia nervosa, although the two disorders are different in their characterisations. In anorexia, patients will intentionally restrict their diet, whereas in bulimia patients will binge eat and then purge the food from their body through vomiting. Neither disorder is mutually exclusive from the other, and some sufferers may have both anorexia and bulimia.

It is estimated that around 1% of school girls meet the criteria for anorexia, although this is likely an underestimation due to a lack of reported cases where sufferers believe their behavior is normal based on social and peer observations.