A high school student allows herself to eat less than six hundred calories a day. Months go by as her body withers. Her friends and family are aghast at her emaciated appearance. Nevertheless, she still agonizes over being "too fat." A college student regularly downs six or seven thousand calories in a single hour. Then she makes herself throw up before her body can digest the massive amount of food. Eating disorders like these affect five million people each year in America alone, and many more millions in other countries. Ninety percent of those who have eating disorders are females. More than ten percent of the people hospitalized with anorexia nervosa will die as a result of the disease. Eating Disorders tells the stories of two young women who struggle with anorexia and bulimia and how they found help. Although eating disorders are among the most difficult of psychiatric illnesses to treat, new advances in care are being made. Many individuals with eating disorders are helped by concerned health professionals and by treatment programs that use the latest medical, behavioral, and pharmacological therapies. In this book, you will learn about eating disorders, the devastating effects they can have, and the treatments that can bring hope back to sufferers' emaciated lives.