The relationship of eating disorders and substance abuse

Initial interest in the relationship between eating disorders, which occur primarily in women, and substance abuse, which is much more frequent in men than women, stemmed from the observations of Crisp (1968) who noted that chronic anorexics who developed bulimic behavior often abused alcohol. More recently, cross-sectional studies of women with eating disorders have documented prevalences of alcohol and other substance abuse in these women that are much higher than those reported in the general female population. Conversely, women with substance abuse disorders report eating-disordered behavior more often than the general population. This article first presents a definition of eating disorders and then addresses (1) the rate of coprevalence of eating disorders and substance abuse; (2) the mechanism of the coprevalence of these disorders; (3) the clinical similarities of these disorders; and (4) future directions.