According to ANRED, Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc, people with eating disorders:

• Tend to be perfectionists. They have unrealistic expectations of themselves and others. In spite of their achievements, they feel inadequate, defective, and worthless.
• See the world as black and white, with no shades of gray. Everything is either good or bad, a success or a failure, fat or thin. If fat is bad and thin is good, then thinner is better, and thinnest is best – even  if thinnest is 68 pounds in a hospital bed on life support.
• May use the behaviors to avoid sexuality. Others use them to try to take control of themselves and their lives. They are strong, usually winning the power struggles they find themselves in, but inside they feel weak, powerless, victimized, defeated, and resentful.
• Often lack a sense of identity. They try to define themselves by manufacturing a socially approved and admired exterior. They have answered the existential question, "Who am I?" by symbolically saying "I am, or I am trying to be, thin. Therefore, I matter."
• Often are legitimately angry, but because they seek approval and fear criticism, they do not know how to express their anger in healthy ways. They turn it against themselves by starving or stuffing.

The statistics surrounding eating disorders in the U.S are sobering. Research suggests that:

• Eating disorders are more common than Alzheimer's disease (five to 10 million people have eating disorders compared to four million with Alzheimer's disease).
• Anorexia nervosa has the highest premature death rate of any psychiatric disorder and the majority of deaths are caused by to physiological complications.
• About four percent (or four out of 100) college-aged women have bulimia.
• Five to 15 percent of people with anorexia or bulimia are male, and males account for about 35 percent of all those with binge-eating disorders.
• About one percent of all women – and as many as 30% of women in medically supervised weight control programs – have binge eating disorder.
• Without treatment, up to twenty percent of people with serious eating disorders die. With treatment, that number drops to between two and three percent.

Biochemistry plays a role in eating disorders. People with eating disorders have imbalances in neurotransmitters – chemicals that allow brain cells to communicate and also serve to control appetite and digestion, sleep, mood, thinking and memory. Similar imbalances are known to cause psychiatric disorders, such as depression. Since many people with eating disorders also develop depression, scientists believe there may be a link between these disorders.  Research has demonstrated that:

• In the central nervous system, chemical messengers known as neurotransmitters control hormone production. Neurotransmitters called serotonin and norepinephrine, which function abnormally in people who have depression, are also found at lower levels in people with anorexia and bulimia.
• Some patients with anorexia may respond well to antidepressant medication that affects serotonin function in the body.
• People with anorexia or certain forms of depression seem to have higher than normal levels of cortisol, a brain hormone released in response to stress. Excess levels of cortisol, both in people with anorexia and those with depression, are caused by a problem that occurs in, or near, the hypothalamus of the brain.
• There are biochemical similarities between people with eating disorders and those with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). And patients with OCD frequently have abnormal eating behaviors.
• A hormone called vasopressin, another brain chemical found to be abnormal in people with eating disorders and OCD, are found in elevated levels in patients with OCD, anorexia, and bulimia.

*Quick Facts have been reviewed by Medical Advisors and are current as of October 2005.