At last! Having lived with Anorexia all my life - the physical symptoms being evident for over 20 years - I have known for a long time that I was born predisposed to develop this disorder. I have never wanted to be this way and have struggled against the illness, desperate to be well for as long as I can remember. I know that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way in which my brain functions which led to this illness - it is fantastic that finally research is being done into brain function. Until it is scientifically proven, people - in particular certain areas of the media - will continue to perpeptuate the many misconceptions surrounding this complex, severe, deadly destructive illness. Anorexia has nothing to do with food or wanting to be thin, it cannot be 'caught'. Nor do I believe there has been an increase, it's just more people are being diagnosed. The sooner research like this provides conclusive answers the better for all sufferers so desperate to be well.

KJ, King's Lynn, England

If this is the case then why is advertising so effective? Surely this relies on imagery having an effect on people. Would companies be prepared to spend billions of pounds every year on something that didn't work?

PC, London,

I suffered from anorexia in the dim dark ages of the mid-seventies when little was known about the disease, let alone there being effective treatments. At my lowest I weighed 35 kg. Somehow I managed to pull myself out of it (took 3 years) and have gone on to live a normal life, including having 2 children as my fertility, thank god, was not affected. While one of the above writers trivializes anorexia because it is not as visible as the obesity problem, it is a fact that it has the highest morbidity rate of any psychiatric illness, that being 10%. The causes of anorexia are complex and differ for each sufferer, but the current stereotype of female beauty, that being ultra-thin, cannot help. Women with perfectly healthy bodies get caught up in a cycle of self-loathing and dieting in order to try to conform to this impossible ideal. With the weight loss, fashion, cosmetics and cosmetic surgery industries all cashing in on this vulnerability, one can only hope for change.

Alicat, Melbourne, Australia

It obviously is a combination of biological and social.

I, personally, don't think that that it is a coincidence that anorexia has increased as obesity has increased. I think that anorexics are people with a morbid fear of obesity. I don't blame the media or thin models. I think we like our models thin for the same reason that anorexics don't know when to stop. We are inundated with obesity and it is refreshing. Of course, anorexia goes further, into a vicious cycle, a lack of pleasure and into dangerous medical territory. I think people who were anorexic would have had other problems, years ago.

rini, huntingdon valley, usa / pennsylvania

while attention to detail and the desire to be 'perfect' may well be hard-wired the brain, the standard for perfection is not. perfection is defined by society, and society today worships thin.

as someone who suffered from an eating disorder in the past i can honestly say that it wasn't looking at skinny models that caused the problem. however, the fetishisation of thin in the media did give me another reason to think that i wasn't good enough, this time because i was too fat.

the media doesn't cause anorexia - happy, healthy girls don't suddenly stop eating. but insecure, unhappy girls are far more likely to develop the disease if they are constantly surrounded by images that define beauty in such a (literally) narrow way.

Lucy, London,

Murrin, you probably never saw them because although it is alway gratifying as a sufferer (I am a rare male version!) to see the pounds disappear, you end up covering this "hard work" with loose fitting clothing, because no matter what, you are still "fat"!
Although recovered, not cured, I still see extra centimetres....now, I cope with it before it would have resulted in purging the body of nutrition (and a trip to hospital). What maitains that view, the morbid fear (a clinical defintion as well) of becoming fat, obesely so, like many poeple these days! I couldn't look like I was pregnant (I am a man, it just looks UGLY!)
For every sufferer there are the (personal) triggers, but we need understanding and not, as some do, victimising- we are already victimised by ourselves!

tim, naples, italy

it is not thin people who make me want to eat less, but the obese, who greedily overeat , who make food unappealing, as I don't want to end up looking or behaving like them.

Elizabeth Hassall, Stoke-on-Trent, uk

Murrin, you're not seeing them because it only affects AT MOST 1% of the population. It is nowhere near an "epidemic," yet anorexia still gets an insane amount of press. I surely have never met an anorexic, not even someone who even remotely looked like one. On the opposite end of the spectrum (here in US) 60% of the population is overweight. We are incessantly bombarded with skinny-models, yet 3/5 of us are fat? I simply cannot accept the skinny-model argument. We should be dedicating resources to more prolific food problems (like, um, overconsumption and hunger).

CW, Dallas, TX

To be honest, I don't remember anorexics from my youth in the sixties. I believe, and I am sure many others do too, that the celebration of THIN is unhealthy and must have an inpact on people with little self-esteem. Anorexia is but one way of coping with the pressure to be like everyone else.
Moreover, I really don't think it's a biological thing, as Kaye suggests; where were the anorexics when I was young? It seems a condition that has become epidemic in the past 15 years or so. And that brings us right back to the skinny role models, on the catwalk, the tube, the movie screens and in the magazines. If you want to be perfect (and that may well be a biological condition) there is a crowd of skin and bones out there telling you exactly how.

Murrin, Amstelveen, the Netherlands