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Eating Disorders

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics

  • 119 Accesses

Synonyms

Anorexia nervosa; Bulimia nervosa; Coercive measures in psychiatry; Competence to give informed consent (medicine); Decisional capacity; Deliberative ethics; DSM-5; Eating disturbances; Feeding disorders; MacCAT; Treatment in psychiatry

Introduction

Feeding and eating disorders were already described in ancient Greek times. However, it was only since the nineteenth century that they were labeled as medical condition. Diagnoses like anorexia hysterica and anorexia nervosa were used, referring to a psychiatric background. Nowadays, the two most commonly diagnosed eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa is less often diagnosed than bulimia nervosa but more known because of its acute risk of physical complications including death.

Next to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, the DSM-5 (APA 2013) classifies pica (persistent eating of nonnutrive, nonfood substances such as soil), rumination disorder (regurgitation of food, with rechewing,...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of medical humanities, VU University medical centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Prof. Dr. GAM Widdershoven (Professor in medical philosophy and ethics) & Dr. AM Ruissen M.D. (Psychiatrist in training and PhD-student)

Authors
  1. Prof. Dr. GAM Widdershoven
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  2. Dr. AM Ruissen M.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to GAM Widdershoven .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Michigan State University Dept. Philosophy, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

    Paul B. Thompson

  2. University of North Texas Dept. Philosophy & Religion Studies, Denton, Texas, USA

    David M. Kaplan

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Widdershoven, G., Ruissen, A. (2014). Eating Disorders. In: Thompson, P., Kaplan, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_489-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_489-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6167-4

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