As is suggested in the pre®x of this book it is indeed surprising that so little has been published speci®cally addressing the question of eating disorders in adolescence. When we consider the numbers involved this is doubly surprising. I think this book then ®lls an important gap in this area.
The book is very well divided into four parts, epidemiological and cultural issues, clinical and psychological issues, management and treatment and course and outcome. It is a multi-author book with some of the top eating disorder specialists in the world contributing. References are given at the end of each chapter. The subject index is at the end. This is obviously more a reference book, and indeed should be treated as such. I think every eating disorder unit and indeed every adolescent unit should have a copy of this excellent treatise.
Gerald Russell writes an excellent foreword and sums up the main aspects of this book far better than I could ever hope to do. In part 1 I thought the essay on Transcultural Comparisons of Adolescent Eating Disorders was particularly good and relevant. The issue of body image disturbances in patients with anorexia nervosa covered by Fletchner I think also is timely considering the controversy in the eating disorder literature recently about this subject. Vanderlinden and Vanderycken summarize very well the aspect of psychological dysfunctioning and sexual abuse in eating disorders. Management and treatment are dealt with very well and I thought the article by Vanderycken on the place of family therapy in the treatment of eating disorders was most helpful.
If I had one criticism I thought the section on course and outcome was a little dif®cult to get through. Perhaps this is often the case with studies covering this area, but again if we consider this book to be a reference book, rather than a simple text book standing alone, it makes good sense to cover this area. Overall then I think this is a timely treatise, very well researched and written and should be available to any specialist working in the ®eld of eating disorders.