Patricia

I am a dietician and will try to explain the differences for your information.

As a rough guide, anorexia is when you avoid eating (with maybe occasional binges).

Bulimia is when you binge and fast in turn, and after a binge you either vomit or purge. Some women chew up food and spit it out.

Of course, the two conditions can overlap and a person can have symptoms of both.

But at the same time, there is a big difference in these two diseases: usually, anorexics are underweight (sometimes very thin indeed), but bulimics can be a healthy-looking normal weight.

The late Princess Diana used to be anorexic (you can see newsreels of her looking pathetically skinny) but then became bulimic when she began to eat large amounts of food but made herself vomit. You can see how she reached an apparently more healthy-looking weight.

It was only when she consulted Susie Orbach (Fat is a Feminist Issue) that she was able to shake off her compulsion.

I hope this has been helpful to you. Always remember the harm that purging or vomiting can do to your teeth, oesophagus, electrolite balance, etc etc.

FG