Eating disorders in the military

Elite athletes often develop eating disorders as they are under constant pressure to meet demanding weight and fitness standards. Members of the U.S. armed forces have also got to meet strict weight and fitness standards and can be placed on a remedial fitness programme and be denied promotion if they fail to match up to them. There have been a few surveys into this issue but because these are filled in by servicemen themselves they have produced unreliable results. The U.S. services' medical records are on a database and a survey of this database from 1998 to 2006 found that in any one year 0.3% of service personnel had an eating disorder. Eating disorders were diagnosed significantly more in 2006 than in 1998 and women were diagnosed significantly more than men. The majority of anorexia cases were in the Marines.

Antczak, Amanda J. and Brininger, Teresa L. - Diagnosed eating disorders in the U.S. military: a nine year review Eating Disorders October-December 2008, 16(5), 363-377