Eating disorders are potentially life-threatening psychiatric illnesses commonly accompanied by serious medical problems. They typically appear during adolescence or early adulthood, a time when young people are heading to college or interviewing for a first job. Many people recover fully from eating disorders, but others become chronically ill, and symptoms can continue into middle age and beyond. Written by leading authorities in eating disorders research and treatment, Eating Disorders: What Everyone Needs to Know answers common questions about eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder, as well as a newly described condition, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID). Practical yet authoritative, the book defines the eating disorders, explains what we know about them based on the latest science, and describes how treatment works. Importantly, the book dispels common myths about eating disorders, such as the notion that they occur only amongst the affluent, that they affect only girls and women, or that they simply result from environmental factors such as the fashion industry and society's obsession with thinness. In reality, as the book explains, there is substantial evidence that eating disorders are brain-based illnesses that do not discriminate, and that they have been around for a very long time. Eating Disorders: What Everyone Needs to Know is essential reading for those seeking authoritative and current information about these often misunderstood illnesses.

Eating disorders are potentially life-threatening psychiatric illnesses commonly accompanied by serious medical problems. They typically appear during adolescence or early adulthood, a time when young people are heading to college or interviewing for a first job. Many people recover fully from eating disorders, but others become chronically ill, and symptoms can continue into middle age and beyond. Written by leading authorities in eating disorders research and treatment, Eating Disorders: What Everyone Needs to Know answers common questions about eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder, as well as a newly described condition, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID). Practical yet authoritative, the book defines the eating disorders, explains what we know about them based on the latest science, and describes how treatment works. Importantly, the book dispels common myths about eating disorders, such as the notion that they occur only amongst the affluent, that they affect only girls and women, or that they simply result from environmental factors such as the fashion industry and society's obsession with thinness. In reality, as the book explains, there is substantial evidence that eating disorders are brain-based illnesses that do not discriminate, and that they have been around for a very long time. Eating Disorders: What Everyone Needs to Know is essential reading for those seeking authoritative and current information about these often misunderstood illnesses.

The recent publication of the revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) has had a profound impact on the classification of eating disorders, introducing changes that were formalized after years of study by the Eating Disorders Work Group. The Handbook of Assessment and Treatment of Eating Disorders is the only book that provides clinicians with everything they need to know to implement these changes in assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. After an overview of feeding and eating disorders that systematically reviews the changes from DSM-IV to DSM-5, some of the foremost scholars in each area address eating disorders in adults, children and adolescents, and special populations. Chapters on assessment and treatment, along with accompanying videos, offer comprehensive, state-of-the-art coverage that will benefit clinicians in practice, such as psychiatrists and psychotherapists, as well as mental health trainees. Clinicians will find the following features and content especially useful: * Five full chapters on assessment tools cover the evolution of measures and instruments, from the primitive beginnings to the cutting edge of new technological applications. The challenges of diagnosing feeding and eating disorders in children and adolescents are also addressed. * Treatment chapters cover restrictive eating, including anorexia nervosa and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, binge eating, including bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder, and other eating problems, including pica, rumination disorder, and night eating syndrome.* One chapter focuses on eating problems among men and boys, who have diverse presentations, and the motivations and body image disturbances that may differ from those typically found among females.* Because attunement to culturally and socially patterned characteristics of clinical presentation is essential to an informed and accurate mental health assessment, an entire chapter is devoted to clinical effectiveness in multicultural and cross-cultural settings.* Each chapter ends with key clinical points to help readers focus on the most salient content, test comprehension, and review for examinations. Clinicians in both training and practice will find the book's up-to-date, DSM-5-compatible content to be utterly essential. The Handbook of Assessment and Treatment of Eating Disorders belongs in the library of every mental health professional practicing today.