EDNOS (Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified)

Along with bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating disorder, EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) is the fourth of the commonly found eating disorders. EDNOS is actually not one specific eating disorder. As the name suggests, it is used to categorize those cases that exhibit some, but not all, of the symptoms that are seen in the other three eating disorders.

Essentially, the categorization itself is slightly unusual; basically you are categorizing a disease, but adding the ‘not otherwise specified’ tag at the end, because it doesn’t have any single individual identifying traits, but is instead an attempt to club together instances that would normally be considered ‘anomalies’.

This is more like a general categorization to account for all those cases that fall in the grey area between the different eating disorders. This is what it means – a person diagnosed with EDNOS could be suffering from possibly anorexia, but not showing all the symptoms; or she or he could be suffering from bulimia, but again not showing all the symptoms. We will discuss this in detail a little later.

EDNOS is mentioned in the upgraded version of the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM-IV-TR. This manual refers to EDNOS as ‘a category (of) disorders of eating that do not meet the criteria for any specific Eating Disorder.’

EDNOS causes >>