Repeated vomiting is likely to give rise to disturbances of body electrolytes and physical complications. This disorder shares many psychological features with anorexia nervosa, including an overconcern with body shape and weight. This diagnosis should not be made in the presence of known physical disorders associated with weight loss.Ī syndrome characterized by repeated bouts of overeating and an excessive preoccupation with the control of body weight, leading to a pattern of overeating followed by vomiting or use of purgatives. For instance, one of the key symptoms, such as amenorrhoea or marked dread of being fat, may be absent in the presence of marked weight loss and weight-reducing behaviour. The symptoms include restricted dietary choice, excessive exercise, induced vomiting and purgation, and use of appetite suppressants and diuretics.ĭisorders that fulfil some of the features of anorexia nervosa but in which the overall clinical picture does not justify that diagnosis. There is usually undernutrition of varying severity with secondary endocrine and metabolic changes and disturbances of bodily function. The disorder is associated with a specific psychopathology whereby a dread of fatness and flabbiness of body contour persists as an intrusive overvalued idea, and the patients impose a low weight threshold on themselves. It occurs most commonly in adolescent girls and young women, but adolescent boys and young men may also be affected, as may children approaching puberty and older women up to the menopause. Behavioural syndromes associated with physiological disturbances and physical factorsĪ disorder characterized by deliberate weight loss, induced and sustained by the patient.