SYNOPSISThe Eating Attitudes Test (Garner & Garfinkel, 1979) was administered to 578 students (446 females and 132 males) at a College of Technology and to 14 ‘control’ subjects fulfilling diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa. Although no male students scored highly, a total of 28 female students (6·3% of the female student sample) scored in the ‘anorexic’ range. These ‘high scorers’, together with a random control group of 28 ‘non-high scorers’, were subsequently Interviewed. Interview revealed that the symptoms of anorexia nervosa were common in the high scoring group but virtually absent in the student control group. It is concluded that a substantial proportion of post-pubertal females (approximately 5%) develop a subclinical form of anorexia nervosa. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the aetiology, prevention and treatment of disturbances in eating behaviour.

A survey of 204 south-Asian and 355 Caucasian schoolgirls was conducted in Bradford using the EAT-26 and the BSQ. At interview, seven Asian girls and two Caucasian girls met DSM-III-R criteria for bulimia nervosa, yielding a prevalence of 3.4% and 0.6% respectively. One Asian girl met DSM-III-R criteria for anorexia nervosa. Factor analyses of the EAT and BSQ supported their cross-cultural conceptual equivalence in this south-Asian population. Among the Asians, high EAT and BSQ scores were associated with a more traditional cultural orientation and not with greater Westernisation. It is probable that these findings reflect the cultural and familial difficulties faced by these Asian girls growing up in Britain.

A survey of 369 schoolgirls was conducted in Lahore, Pakistan, using the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT‐26) and Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) in English. Factor analyses of the EAT and BSQ supported their cross‐cultural validity in these English medium schools. Girls who scored highly on either questionnaire were invited for interview. One girl met DSM‐/I/‐R criteria for bulimia nervosa and there were five subjects with partial syndrome bulimia nervosa. No girls suffered from anorexia nervosa. There was some evidence that the most ‘Westernized’ girls were at greatest risk of developing an eating disorder. Comparison is made with a survey con‐ ducted by the authors among Asian schoolgirls in Bradford, UK. The results are discussed in the light of previous claims that eating disorders should be regarded as ‘culture‐bound syndromes’.

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Clinicians who deal with patients with anorexia nervosa are well acquainted with their patients' inability to recognise their emaciation. The patients' insistence that they are normal weight or even overweight, against clear evidence to the contrary, led Bruch (1962) to state that the misperception reaches “delusional proportions”. Studies of body size perception in anorexia nervosa that have used the ‘body part’ method have invariably found that the patients overestimate their body size (Slade & Russell, 1973; Crisp & Kalucy, 1974; Pierloot & Houben, 1978; Garner et al, 1976; Button et al, 1977; Fries, 1977; Casper et al, 1979) but the majority have not found any significant difference in size estimation between patients and controls (Slade, 1985).