The Statistics:

How many people have eating disorders?

Anorexia nervosa
Research suggests that about one percent (1%) of female adolescents have anorexia. That means that about one out of every one hundred young women between ten and twenty are starving themselves, sometimes to death. There do not seem to be reliable figures for younger children and older adults, but such cases, while they do occur, are not common.

Bulimia nervosa
Research suggests that about four percent (4%), or four out of one hundred, college-aged women have bulimia. About 50% of people who have been anorexic develop bulimia or bulimic patterns. Because people with bulimia are secretive, it is difficult to know how many older people are affected. Bulimia is rare in children.

Males with eating disorders
Only about 10% of people with anorexia and bulimia are male. This gender difference may reflect our society's different expectations for men and women. Men are supposed to be strong and powerful. They feel ashamed of skinny bodies and want to be big and powerful. Women, on the other hand, are supposed to be tiny, waif-like, and thin. They diet to lose weight, making themselves vulnerable to binge eating. Some develop rigid and compulsive overcontrol. Dieting and the resulting hunger are two of the most powerful eating disorders triggers known.

What age groups are affected?
Anorexia and bulimia affect primarily people in their teens and twenties, but studies report both disorders in children as young as six and individuals as old as seventy-six.

Overweight and obesity
Studies suggest that about sixty percent of adult Americans, both male and female, are overweight. About one third (34%) are obese, meaning that they are 20% or more above normal, healthy weight. Many of these people have binge eating disorder.

In addition, about 31 percent of American teenage girls and 28 percent of boys are somewhat overweight. An additional 15 percent of American teen girls and nearly 14 percent of teen boys are obese. (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, January 2004) Causes include fast food, snacks with high sugar and fat content, use of automobiles, increased time spent in front of TV sets and computers, and a generally more sedentary lifestyles than slimmer peers.

Binge eating disorder
A recent study reported in Drugs and Therapy Perspectives reports that about one percent of women in the United States have binge eating disorder, as do thirty percent of women who seek treatment to lose weight. In other studies, up to two percent, or one to two million adults in the U.S., have problems with binge eating.

Eating disorders and substance abuse
About 72% of alcoholic women younger than 30 also have eating disorders. (Health magazine, Jan/Feb 2002)