Each year millions of people in the United States are affected by serious and sometimes life-threatening eating disorders. The vast majority are adolescents and young adult women. Approximately one percent of adolescent girls develops anorexia nervosa, a dangerous condition in which they can literally starve themselves to death. The reasons for difficulties around the issues of food and eating are myriad and complex, and no single answer sufficiently explains the phenomenon of women who undereat as a response to stress. Psychological, familial, biological, and social factors all contribute to this disorder, which makes anorexia nervosa a complicated disease to successfully treat. Treatment is typically tailored to the needs of the individual, and may involve individual and family counseling as well as hospitalization and chemical treatments. Nevertheless, some people with eating disorders refuse to admit that they have a problem and do not get treatment. Fortunately, increasi!
             ng awareness of the dangers of eating disorders, sparked by medical studies and extensive media coverage, has led many people to seek help.
             The Diagnostic Statistical Manual IV, a manual for psychologists outlining the characteristics of mental disorders, provides the guidelines for recognizing anorexia nervosa. The foremost indication of this eating disorder is the refusal to maintain a body weight over 85% of the accepted weight for the individual's height and body frame. This is also accompanied by an intense and pervasive fear of gaining weight and in females the onset of amenorrhea, or the cessation of menstruation. Lastly, there is a distorted body image of the individual, or a denial of the weight loss. The anorexic state has a number of possible consequences, including lanugo hair, (soft downy hair over the body), yellowish skin, low blood pressure, low body temperature and constipation (Vandereycken and Meerman, 1984). In addition, 50% of anorex...