About Eating Disorders
Types of Eating Disorders
How common are they?
What causes them?
How long do they last?
What treatments are effective?
A review of the evidence
What's new?
Resources

About Eating Disorders

Magazines and television are filled with images of teen girls and women who are very thin.  These images influence teens and even young children to diet to keep their weight down.  In doing so, they often engage in eating behaviours that may adversely influence their body weight and health in adulthood.

Some girls (and some boys) may take dieting and distorted body perception to extremes, becoming dangerously thin while still thinking themselves overweight or even obese.  For this group of teens and young adults, body image, weight, and relationship with food become unhealthy.  They are said to have eating disorders, the two most common forms of which are Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN).

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