Eating Disorders On The Rise

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Eating disorders on the rise

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
<!-- rbox goes here --> New York Times TOOLS


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<!-- rbox ends here --> In the first nationally representative study of eating disorders in the United States, researchers have found that their incidence is growing among both men and women, and that binge-eating disorder is even more common than the better known anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.
The nationwide survey of more than 2,900 men and women, published in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry, found that 0.6 percent of the population has anorexia, 1 percent has bulimia and 2.8 percent has a binge-eating disorder.
Lifetime rates of the disorders, the researchers found, are higher in younger age groups, suggesting that the problem is increasingly common.
Eating disorders are about twice as common among women as men, the study reports.
Experts not involved in the study called it significant.
The survey, partly financed by two pharmaceutical companies, was carried out from 2001 to 2003 among adults 18 and older, and the diagnoses were established using face-to-face interviews.
The three disorders all appear in the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-IV, though binge eating is not considered a definitive diagnosis like anorexia and bulimia. Rather, it is one of a number of categories requiring further study.
The diagnosis requires that a person eat an excessively large amount of food in a two-hour period at least twice a week for six months, feel a lack of control over the episodes, and experience marked distress regarding the practice.
Eating disorders, the researchers found, are commonly accompanied by other psychiatric illnesses.
In the survey, more than half of people with bulimia also had major depression, 50 percent had phobias and more than one-third had a substance abuse disorder.
Over all, more than 94 percent of people with bulimia, 56 percent of those with anorexia and 79 percent of those with binge-eating disorder had at least one other psychiatric diagnosis.