Health professionals who specialize in management of obesity and eating disorders and primary care providers. The 23 chapters in the book are divided into three sections on bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and obesity. More than two thirds of the chapters focus on obesity.
Several chapters are revisions of preexisting publications.
The editor's decision to cover eating disorders and obesity in a single book underscores the important similarities between and common management strategies for these disorders. One example is the role of binge eating and the value of cognitive behavioral therapy in all eating disorders. The underlying theory of the section on obesity is that obesity should be considered a chronic disease. This theory recasts the meaning and consequences of regaining weight after therapy is discontinued as a need for ongoing management rather than treatment failure. Redundancy, especially in the chapters on obesity, mars the quality of the book.