Epidemiology and mortality of eating disorders

What makes it worthwhile to invest effort into a clinical problem? The prob lem must be common, demanding, or severe. The eating disorders live up to t hese specifications. Maybe eating disorders are not so common, but changes in attitudes toward care and the severity of these disorders present a seve re burden for health care delivery Systems(46,) (54,) (71,) (90) and manage d care.(68) These disorders are severe in many ways, carrying a considerabl e risk for emotional, psychosocial and sexual "stunting,"(68) and significa nt risks for morbidity(9,) (98,) (99) and mortality.(70) The fact that it i s possible to die from starvation ought not to present any intellectual pro blems for people with a memory going some 50 years back or with an interest in newer history. This fact was the subject of a presentation by Eitinger( 13) at the 1965 symposium in Gottingen, Germany. This article presents a transatlantic view of the epidemiology and mortalit y in the eating disorders to expand the field of vision a little beyond the DSM-IV2 and managed care.(19, 46, 106)