Twenty years ago, people weren’t familiar with the eating disorder lingo. Anorexia and Bulimia would have required a dictionary – unless you’d had some personal experience or heard of Karen Carpenter.

Ten years ago, size zero, if it existed, remained the other side of the Atlantic; anorexia was a rich girl’s disease; and, bulimia was something that went on behind doors in American universities.

Today, it’s part of the landscape: a very 21st century disease.

Or is it?

Eating disorders may be far more possible – and, dare I say it, far more acceptable – in today’s society; but the emotional context’s not that dissimilar from stuff that people were describing years ago -

It’s just the manifestation and the response that’s different.

This section looks at where eating disorders fit into today’s society – and how food has been used to handle some age old emotional baggage–

• Body Image – In Context

• Social Pressures

• Urban Living

• Gender

• In the news