Eating disorders and adolescence. From diagnosis to treatment

Abstract

Eating Disorders (EDs) are potentially serious disabling, pervasive, and life-threatening mental disorders that can greatly impair physical health and significantly alter an individual's psychosocial functioning. They are some of the most prevalent disorders during adolescence and often take a chronic and disabling course, although they can occur across the whole lifespan. Prevalence appears to be higher in Western populations and in the female sex. They play a key role in the origin and maintenance of symptomatology, predominantly: distorted beliefs, distorted perceptions, dysfunctional attitudes toward weight, body shape, and nutrition, which take hold beginning in childhood or adolescence, but also genetic bases, socio-cultural and environmental factors. Given the complexity of the etiology of such psychopathologies and maintenance factors, treatment must contemplate a multidimensional and multidisciplinary approach. To date, the deep understanding of the pathophysiology and psychobiology of EDs remains to be further investigated.