The rise and fall of a fact: The increase in anorexia nervosa

Author(s): Nicolson, M.

Journal/Book: Sociol Health Ill. 1996; 18: 108 Cowley Rd, Oxford, Oxon, England OX4 1JF. Blackwell Publ Ltd. 581-608.

Abstract: Over the last thirty years, it has regularly been asserted that the incidence of anorexia nervosa is increasing. The paper examines the background of this idea, traces its origins, and analyses the process whereby it became widely accepted within the medical and sociological literature. The study is based upon a citation list of all the epidemiological studies of anorexia nervosa with publication dates between 1960 and the end of 1990, which has been used to identify the most important publications on the prevalence and incidence of the disease. Scrutiny of the content of these key publications has allowed us to follow the emergence, and then the partial break-up, of a broad consensus - involving clinical psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, as well as medical sociologists and historians - around the assertion that anorexia nervosa was increasing in incidence. In the course of this historical reconstruction, four distinctive patterns of citation behaviour were revealed. The paper also examines the changing nature of the explanation offered for the putative rise in the numbers of sufferers and suggests reasons why such a perspective upon the disease was widely supported by clinicians and by a variety of other commentators.

Note: Article S Vanthof, Netherlands Inst Mental Hlth, POB 5103, NL-3502 Jc Utrecht, Netherlands

Keyword(s): anorexia nervosa; eating disorders; epidemiology; psychiatry; history; social constructionism; EPIDEMIOLOGY; BULIMIA; PREVALENCE; ROCHESTER; CONTEXT

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