Current approaches to the etiology and treatment of anorexia nervosa.

Abstract

The first section of this paper reviews the literature on the incidence, clinical findings, and outcome of anorexia nervosa. Methodological problems with outcome statistics and data on the family background of anorexic patients are discussed. The remainder of this paper evaluates the etiological and therapeutic approaches of psychodynamic, family interactional, behavioral, and medical models. The problems inherent in viewing anorexia nervosa as either a physiological or psychological disorder are considered. The importance of continuing research into all facets of anorexia nervosa is emphasized.

Cultural correlates of eating attitudes: A comparison between native‐born and immigrant university students in Israel

“…1,2 In the United States, 90% of those who suffer from anorexia nervosa 3 and bulimia nervosa 4 are women. Research conducted in Israel shows results similar to those obtained in Western cultures.…”

Eating disorders : the correlation of family relationships with an eating disorder continuum

“…No other consistent patterns of family characteristics were seen in these studies either (reported in Bemis, 1978). Perhaps Yager (1982) presents the most accurate profile of family characteristics, reporting that research has identified a range of mother-daughter relationships extending from the overprotective to ambivalent to rejecting to "normal.…”

“…In the recent literature, there are a variety of attempts to explain anorexia nervosa and bulimia, ranging from biological to family systems explanations (Bemis, 1978;Hsu, 1983). There is a growing consensus that familial, biological, and sociocultural factors all contribute to the development of both anorexia and bulimia (Johnson & Flach, 1985).…”

Prognostic Factors in Anorexia nervosa

“…This is espe cially important in the case of anorexia ner vosa because therapeutic approaches are widely divergent (e.g., pharmacological, learning theory oriented, psychoanalytic, system oriented, multifactorial) [Vandereycken and Meermann, 1984], direct therapy comparisons have hardly been feasible until now, and the numerous studies on prognos tic factors only classified the latter as posi tive, negative, or irrelevant [e.g., Crisp et al, 1977;Bemis, 1978;Steinhausen, 1979;Fichter, 1981a;Kohle and Simons, 1986] without establishing an empirically founded hierarchical order based on the relative im portance of the areas under investigation. This study attempts to make up for that defi ciency.…”