EATING DISORDERS - THE LAST 25 YEARS

During the past 25 years there has been measurable progress in the und erstanding and treatment of the three eating disorders-anorexia nervos a, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. This progress has occurr ed in four areas-diagnosis, measurement, etiology and treatment. The i ntroduction of diagnosis into the field of eating disorders, which inv olved a new emphasis on measurement, facilitated studies of epidemiolo gy, etiology and treatment of what have become discrete clinical disor ders. The greatest progress has been with bulimia nervosa, in which ne w behavioral and pharmacological treatments have reversed the pessimis m with which the treatment of this disorder had initially been viewed. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.