High prevalence rate. An estimated 14 million Americans suffer from eating disorders. Eating
disorders cut across race, color, gender and socioeconomic categories. No one is immune.
On the rise and affecting children. The incidence of eating disorders has doubled since the 1960s
and is increasing in younger age groups, in children as young as seven.
Impact on health. Eating disorder are commonly associated with substantial psychological
problems, including depression, substance abuse, and all too frequently with suicide. They also can
lead to major medical complications, including cardiac arrhythmia, cognitive impairment,
osteoporosis, infertility, and most seriously death. In fact, anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality
rate of all the psychiatric disorders.