Doody's Book Review

This comprehensive fourth edition guide on eating disorders considers the reasons why eating disorders occur, and then looks at each in turn, describing the eating behaviors, diagnosis, and treatments available. This book provides succinct and comprehensive general information on eating disorders to patients, their families, and health professionals. Many thousands of young people, women especially, are affected by these disorders. The target audience for this includes the patient, the patient's family, and the health professional, including the primary care physician. The book is an easy read for its entire targeted audience from the patient to the physician. This small, almost pocket-sized book includes relevant illustrations, diaries, graphs, and tables. Although the references are current, the author also consistently prompts the reader to read further on the subject where references can be found. This thorough depiction of eating disorders manages to cover pertinent information including case studies, illustrations, underlying contributing factors, patient viewpoints, and methods of treatment for the eating disorder. The author manages to write this informative book to a broad audience. This timely book helps address the eating disorders that are affecting thousands of young people yearly. Sunny D. Mitchell, BS(Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center). Copyright 2001, Doody Publishing