Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness (1).
An estimated 0.5 to 3.7 percent of women suffer from anorexia nervosa at some point in their lifetime. Research suggests that about 1 percent of female adolescents have anorexia (2).
An estimated 1.1 to 4.2 percent of women have bulimia nervosa in their lifetime.
Lifetime prevalence of binge eating disorder is 3.5% in women, and 2.0% in men (3).
Onset of anorexia nervosa is most commonly around the same time as puberty.
Binge Eating Disorder was found to usually start during late adolescence or in the early twenties (4).
A study in 2003 found that people with anorexia are 56 times more likely to commit suicidethan non-sufferers (5).
Alcohol and substance abuse are four times more prevalent amongst people that suffer eating disorders (6).
Hospitalizations for eating disorders in children under the age of 12 years old increased by 119 percent between the years of 1999 and 2006 (7).
Twin studies show that there is a significant genetic component to eating disorders (8).
In childhood (5-12 years), the ratio of girls to boys diagnosed with AN or BN is 5:1, whereas in adolescents and adults, the ratio is much larger – 10 females to every one male (9).
Young women with anorexia are 12 times more likely to die than are other women the same age that don’t have anorexia (10).
The most common eating disorder in the United States is binge eating disorder (BED). It is estimated that 3.5% of women, 2% of men, and 30% to 40% of those seeking weight loss treatments can be clinically diagnosed with binge eating disorder (17).
