Running — An Analogue of Anorexia?

IN the early 1970s only a few somewhat idiosyncratic, health-oriented people jogged. Since then distance running has become a cultural fascination for 31 million people in the United States¹ and has spawned a billion-dollar sporting-goods industry, as well as a proliferation of sports-medicine clinics to treat the stress fractures, avulsed tendons, and assorted minor injuries attendant on profound exertion. In almost exactly the same time span, anorexia nervosa — previously thought to be a rare disorder — has increased in incidence to such an extent that it is now regarded as a public-health problem.² Within the past year several serious.