whole lot else was discovered or said about the illness until the 19th century, when doctors came to the conclusion that it was a psychological illness (History of Eating Disorders, 2000). It was during the 1970's that Anorexia Nervosa became more widely known. In past, physicians were familiar with eating disorders in medical school yet they rarely had to deal with any of these cases in their practices (History of Eating Disorders, 2000). During the 1970’s the general public was still unaware of the impact that eating disorders were having on many people (History of Eating Disorders, 2000). Prior to the 1970's little was known about Bulimia, even to doctors and psychiatrists. Bingeing and purging, Bulimia, was first linked to stages of Anorexia. It wasn’t until the mid 1970's that Bulimia was categorized and seen as a completely different illness than Anorexia (History of Eating Disorders, 2000). In 1979, an English psychiatrist from London, Dr. Gerald Russell was the first to name the disorder Bulimia Nervosa. He described Bulimia by noting "the patient suffers from powerful urges to overeat; the patient seeks to avoid getting fat as a result of eating the food by making themselves vomit. These patients suffering from Bulimia have great fear of becoming obese” (History of Eating Disorders, 2000).In the early 1980's, the public became more aware of eating disorders when popular singer Karen Carpenter's died due to Anorexia. Carpenter died at a very young age due to heart failure caused by chronic anorexia nervosa(History of Eating Disorders, 2000). Before the 80’s eating disorders among women had been the subject that researchers were concentrating on. But in the past fifteen to twenty years, the researchers and medical personnel have begun to acknowledge and address the existence of eating disorders in males( Killea, 2000). Approximately 10% of people diagnosed by medical professionals as having an eating...
