Identifying Risk Factors That Predict Onset of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa

Across the United States, thousands of children and adolescents suffer from eating disorders. Among young women alone, an estimated 2 to 4 percent are dealing with anorexia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa also has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder and produces a six-fold increased risk for death. Unfortunately, study shows that current treatments are only successful with 25 percent of patients and no eating disorder prevention program has been found to reduce future onset of anorexia nervosa. The goal of this study is to conduct a highly innovative pilot study that will identify risk factors that predict future onset of anorexia nervosa and investigate how the risk processes for anorexia nervosa are different from the risk processes for bulimia nervosa. The proposed pilot study will: - Compare 30 healthy adolescent girls at high risk for anorexia nervosa to 30 healthy adolescent girls at high risk for bulimia nervosa, and 30 healthy adolescent girls at low risk for eating disorder in an effort to document risk processes that are present in early adolescence before anorexia nervosa typically emerges. - Test whether elevations in the hypothesized risk factors predict future onset of anorexia nervosa over a four-year follow-up.