Eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa are slowly gripping a part of the female adolescent to young adult population. Although, Anorexia Nervosa has only been public since the 1970's, records of the disorder go back as far as 1689. Thomas Morton, an English physician, studied subjects with a disorder he called the "wasting" disease. He had two cases, which were very similar. One was an eight-teen yr. old girl and the other was a six-teen yr. old boy. Both subjects had similar symptoms. They both had a strong lack of appetite, sensitivity to coldness, and extreme sadness. The girl eventually starved herself to death; however, the boy did recover (Gordon 12-13).

Through out the centuries there have been many cases of girls "fasting", and not due to religious purposes. In the 1870's the disorder became a topic of more medical concern. It happened around the time two doctors, Sir William Gull and Charles Lasegue, simultaneously pub

Alexander-Mott, L., & Lumsden, D.B. (1994). Understanding Eating Disorders. Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Francis.

Matthews, J.R. (1991). Library in a Book: Eating Disorders. New York: Facts on File Inc.

In 1973 a woman who trained in psychoanalysis, named Bruch, wrote a book on eating disorders. Bruch had previously worked for three decades with Anorexic and obese patients. She observed that Anorexics had three main characteristics. The first was a distorted body image, a misperception of fat. The second was the inability to identify needs, particularly hunger, but also the whole range of emotions. The last characteristic was a feeling of ineffectiveness, lack of self-worth (Matthews 30).

Anorexia Nervosa is an unusual disorder and to this day is still not fully defined in medical terms. Who can really know if we'll ever find the origin and reason for this disorder? I think the only thing we can do as society, role models, and parents is to be accepting of all people and not set unrealistic goals. We need to allow ourselves to break the mold of this devastating disorder.

lished papers on a number of cases dealing with self-starvation (Alexander-Mott &Lumsden 101-102). Gull actually came up with the term Anorexia Nervosa, because he believed it was a nervous disease. Both doctors note four distinctive characteristics with each case. All of the patients experienced high levels of hyperactivity. Each of the patients denied the existence of the disorder. Also, they each had peculiar attitudes toward food. Finally, each patient had pathological family interactions (Gordon 13).

The process an Anorexic person goes through is devas

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