BOOK REVIEWS: Eating and Weight Disorders

Designed as an introductory text for survey courses intended for college and professional students in psychology, medicine, social work and nursing, Carlos Grilo’s Eating and Weight Disorders, published as one of the “modular courses” in a series of parallel clinical psychology books, fulfills its mission nicely. This concise, clearly written, well-illustrated book presents an excellent distillation of the major issues of the field. It is amply illustrated with tables, figures, and text boxes that break up the written text to focus on a range of issues, from clinical case examples through theoretical models. Each topic is well researched, and the most important current references are cited.

The early chapters discuss the epidemiology of eating and weight disorders, including issues of normative eating, dieting and body image concerns, and development. The next series of chapters cover understanding, assessing, and treating anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, atypical eating disorders and binge eating disorder, and obesity. Interested students are pointed toward other helpful resources for more information.

While many topics are inevitably given short shrift in such an abbreviated text, and from my perspective biological aspects of the origins and pathophysiology of the disorders receive scant attention, this highly readable book offers educators in search of a short college-level or early-graduate-level text an excellent option.

— J.Y.