Word: bulimias
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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Cynthia's eating binges, always followed by self-induced vomiting or heavy use of laxatives, are symptoms of bulimarexia (from the Greek words for ox and hunger), an eating disorder also known as gorge-purge syndrome and bulimia nervosa Some bulimarectics gorge themselves four or five times a week, putting away 40,000 calories, then take 200 to 600 laxative pills. "To many of them, a day without binging is like a day without sunshine," says Health Educator Mary Ellen Shanesey of the University of Illinois. "They have chosen this way to handle stress, as alcoholics use alcohol...
...Craig Johnson, director of the Anorexia Nervosa Center at Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, who is heading an epidemiological study of the disorder, estimates that "up to 20% of women on college campuses are involved in some degree in bulimia and purging." A study at Ohio State University produced an even higher estimate: 30%. Johnson reports some colleges have informal groups of women who "pig out" regularly in frantic feasting...