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Bulimia Nervosa (cont.)

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What is bulimia?

Bulimia, also called bulimia nervosa, is one of a number of eating disorders. This mental illness is characterized by episodes of bingeing and somehow purging the food and/or associated calories in the pursuit of weight loss. About 1%-2% of adolescent girls in the United States develop bulimia. While bulimia and other eating disorders tend to occur most often in Caucasian females in this country, males and ethnic minorities are increasingly developing eating disorders. Bulimia is also often co-morbid (co-occurs with) body dysmorphic disorder, which involves the sufferer having a false sense that something is defective with their appearance beyond weight.

Women with eating disorders tend to have higher rates of infertility than women without an eating disorder, in that eating disordered women have lower rates of pregnancy and childbirth. When pregnancy is achieved, more than 7% of women suffer from some form of eating disorder during that time, with more than 2% engaging in both bingeing and some form of purging behaviors. Given the changes in body chemistry that such behaviors can cause, bulimia during pregnancy can pose significant health risks for the developing fetus.

This illness is a significant public-health problem both because of the physical and mental-health effects it can have. Bulimia often co-occurs with depression, anxiety, and substance-abuse disorders and results in a loss of productivity due to disability that is higher than that of disability caused by depression and anxiety combined.

Medically Reviewed by a Doctor on 3/27/2014

