Medical instability in typical and atypical adolescent anorexia nervosa: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Plain English Summary This review compares physical health markers of underweight and healthy weight in young people with restrictive eating disorders. Previous studies on this topic have found that young people with an eating disorder may become physically unwell regardless of their body weight. The aim of this review was to bring together the results from these studies to establish if the presence of underweight is necessary to become physically unwell. Studies within this review included a total of 2331 adolescent male and females diagnosed with an eating disorder. Roughly one third of young people with an eating disorder were found to be physically unwell and admitted to hospital but were not underweight, and this was similar to the amount of young people that were underweight and needed a hospital admission. Although some markers of physical health were worse in the underweight group, adolescents who were less underweight were also likely to become physically unwell. Overall, the review found that young people can become physically unwell regardless of whether they are clinically underweight or not, but that more research is needed on this topic.

Keywords

• Anorexia nervosa
• Atypical anorexia nervosa
• Adolescent eating disorders