What is required for a diagnosis of bulimia?

What is required for a diagnosis of bulimia?

Barton Blinder, MD (Clinical Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry) gives expert video advice on: What is an 'eating disorder'?; What is 'bulimia'?; What is 'purging'? and more...

The term we use is bulimia nervosa. Alright so, for a formal diagnosis, there are several components. The bulimia component is the eating component and we also refer to that as binge eating. These have to occur with a frequency of several times a week; usually two to three times a week over several months. So that is one criteria. Then the nervosa criteria (we use the word bulimia), the nervosa criteria consists of mental attitudes and compensating behaviors. The mental attitudes are usually related to a fear of being fat or body image distortions. And then the compensating mechanisms are purging and non-purging. So, the total picture -- on the front end, the intake (that is the abnormal eating) and then the compensatory mechanism, that total picture is what we diagnose as bulimia nervosa.