Chapter 12 - Eating Disorders and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Abstract

This chapter discusses the eating disorders and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The chapter describes the main types of eating disorders and examining their phenomenological and cognitive overlap with OCD. There are three types of Eating Disorders (ED): (1) anorexia nervosa; (2) bulimia nervosa and, (3) Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) or Atypical Eating Disorder. Anorexia nervosa has distinct behavioral, cognitive and physical characteristics. Behaviorally, patients refuse to maintain normal body weight and restrict their eating. The primary behavior that characterizes bulimia nervosa is the consumption of large quantities of food. People with bulimia nervosa are of normal weight since the excess food ingested in a binge is balanced by the compensatory behavior. For patients who experience binge eating in the absence of compensatory behavior, a new category of eating disorder called “binge eating disorder” has been proposed. It is hypothesized that the two disorders(ED and OCD) co-occur more commonly than expected by chance. For the treatment of OCD, it may be equally informative to identify beliefs that characterize eating disorders. For patients with both OCD and an eating disorder, examining these beliefs and their applicability to different domains may be particularly illuminating. The role of cognitions in the relationship between eating disorders and OCD would also be informed by the experimental manipulation of the beliefs to see the impact on each of the disorders. Such research would undoubtedly be challenging but it would benefit patients who are experiencing two disabling and distressing disorders.